Viandar de la Vera

The road to Viandar de la Vera climbs so sharply that hire-car engines audibly labour in second gear. At 540 metres, just when the dashboard thermometer finally drops below 30 °C, the village appears: a tight cluster of stone and timber houses clinging to a ridge that drops away into the Garganta de Río Moros. A hand-painted mural of a washerwoman and a shepherd greets drivers before they’ve even found a place to park. That is the sum of formal signage; nothing else announces that you’ve arrived.

What the village actually is

Two hundred and eighteen residents, one grocery shop with opening hours that drift according to the owner’s fields, a bar that may or may not close at lunchtime, and a natural pool deep enough for a proper swim. No souvenir stalls, no ticket office, no interpretive centre. Instead, narrow lanes tilt between vegetable plots where irrigation channels still run open, feeding tomatoes and peppers that taste of mountain water rather than greenhouse air. Houses are built from whatever the Sierra de Gredos provided: granite for the lower walls, chestnut beams for the balconies, clay tiles the colour of burnt toast. Some have been restored by summer families from Madrid; others sag gently, their wooden balustrades silvered by decades of sun and snow.

The parish church of San Pedro squats at the highest point, its bell tower more functional than decorative. Inside, the cool darkness smells of candle wax and floor polish. A single fresco fragment, rediscovered during a recent leak repair, shows Saint Peter hauling a net of surprisingly small fish—locally painted, locally revered, and utterly uninterested in the wider art world.

Water, woods and walking

Viandar’s real wealth is water. Melting snow from the Gredos massif feeds the gargantas—steep-sided ravines that stay refreshingly cold even in August. Ten minutes’ walk below the houses, the Río Moros widens into a rock pool large enough for a dozen swimmers. The bottom is stony; bring the water shoes you packed for the Costa Brava and never used. Dragonflies skim the surface, and the only charge is the effort of scrambling back uphill afterwards.

Way-marked footpaths strike out from the upper cemetery. One 45-minute loop climbs through holm oak and strawberry tree to a stone hut once used by goatherds; the longer PR-CC 83 continues eastwards, contouring around terraces of sweet-chestnut until it meets the GR-10 long-distance route. None of the climbs are Alpine, but the altitude can fool sea-level lungs: a gentle gradient still raises a sweat. In May the verges are loud with nightingales; October brings the smell of rotting chestnuts and the risk of wild boar encounters at dusk.

What passes for lunch

The grocery shop stocks tinned tuna, local chorizo and vacuum-packed trout from the Jaranda gorge. If you want bread, note the delivery van arrives Tuesdays and Fridays around eleven; by midday the loaves are gone. The smarter move is to order a plate of patatas revolconas at the bar: paprika-stained potatoes topped with crisp pork belly, mild enough for even the most cautious British palate. A glass of house red from Guijo de Granadilla costs €2.50 and tastes like liquid blackberry. Goat cheese arrives unlabelled, wrapped only in laurel leaves; it is softer and less goaty than anything sold in UK delicatessens. Close the meal with sugar-dusted churros if the weekend fryer is lit; if not, settle for an ice-cream bar from the chest freezer and eat it on the step watching swifts race the clouds.

The calendar that still matters

Festivities are small, crowded only by standards of places this size. San Pedro, at the end of June, means a procession, a brass band that has clearly toured every village in La Vera, and temporary fairground cars assembled in the schoolyard. August’s Asunción brings emigrants back from Madrid; suddenly every second house has a SEAT León parked outside and shirts draped from balconies to dry. On New Year’s Eve, villagers parade in fancy dress singing aguinaldos—folk songs traded for anis and shortbread. Visitors are welcome but not announced; if you happen to walk through, someone will hand you a plastic cup regardless of your Spanish vocabulary.

Getting here, staying here, leaving again

Public transport is theoretical. The last bus from Cáceres reaches Jarandilla de la Vera at 19:00; after that, a 12-kilometre taxi ride costs €25 and must be booked a day ahead. Hiring a car at Madrid or Seville airport is simpler, though the final 30 kilometres on the EX-203 twist tightly enough to test British clutch control. Phone signal drops out twice; download an offline map before you leave the motorway. Petrol stations are scarce—fill up in Plasencia if you’re coming from the north, or in Navalmoral de la Mata from the south.

Accommodation inside the village amounts to three self-catering cottages. Two sit on lanes barely two metres wide; if you’ve rented a people-carrier, prepare for wing-mirror diplomacy. A smarter rural house hides 500 metres outside the centre, reachable via a concrete track that freezes in January and turns white with ice. Prices hover around €90 a night for two, linen and firewood included. There is no cash machine; the nearest ATM is back down the mountain in Jarandilla, so bring notes for groceries and churros.

Why you might leave early—or stay an extra night

Viandar will not entertain you. It offers no zip-lines, no guided tastings, no artisanal shops. What it does offer is temperature: mornings crisp enough to justify a second coffee, afternoons hot but never suffocating, nights that require a blanket. If that rhythm suits you, the village starts to feel like a permission slip to do very little. You can walk to the chestnut grove, read two chapters, and return to find the bar shuttered because the owner’s cousin dropped by—so you sit on the church steps instead, listening to the irrigation water gurgle its way downhill. The risk is monotony: after 24 hours you may crave a museum, or at least a different bar. The antidote is five kilometres away in Jarandilla’s castle-parador, where you can drink a gin-and-tonic beneath mediaeval battlements and still be back before the swifts start their evening circuits.

Come in April for orchids along the path edges, or in late September when the forest smells of mushrooms and wood smoke. Mid-August is reliably hot, but the pool is deep and the village never reaches coastal saturation. Winter brings snow at higher ground; passes close if the wind shifts, and the grocery may run low on milk. Whenever you choose, treat Viandar as a pause rather than a destination. Fill the boot with food, allow for siesta hours, and remember that the mountain keeps its own timetable—one that was ticking long before British accents echoed through the lanes, and will tick long after the hire car has wound back down to the plain.