Casares de las Hurdes

The road climbs so steeply out of Nuñomoral that even hire-car engines grumble. By the time the tarmac flattens, the dashboard thermometer has dropped six degrees and the slate roofs below look charcoal-grey in the thin air. At 1,110 metres, Casares de las Hurdes is the highest village in Extremadura’s Sierra de Gata, and it behaves like it: nights are cool even in July, chestnut trees outnumber olive groves, and the loudest sound at noon is usually a buzzard.

Stone, Slate and Silence

Granite and mica-schist walls shoulder against each other along alleyways barely two metres wide. Timber balconies, once hung with maize cobs for winter fodder, now hold geraniums that survive the altitude because someone remembers to water them. There is no ornamental plaza, no selfie-ready mirador—just a sloping main street that ends at the parish church of Santa María, a modest rectangle finished in 1783 after the last wolf attack had ceased to be an urgent concern.

Walk slowly and the village reveals its working parts: a communal bread oven still blackened from Friday’s batch, a slate trough where cold water arrives via a Roman-era levada, the faint smell of goat cheese drifting from an open doorway. This is not museum-Hollywood Spain; it is simply a place that never got round to changing.

Walking Without Waymarks

Officially there are three PR footpaths, but locals treat signposts as optional. The simplest outing follows the track behind the church, drops 200 metres through sweet-chestnut woods to the Río Hurdano, then climbs back on a cobbled mule trail built in the 1930s by workers paid with Republican vouchers. Allow two hours, carry water, and expect thigh-burn on the return. After rain the schist turns treacherous—think Lake District inclines on chocolate-box slate.

Keener hikers can link Casares to neighbouring Ladrillar (6 km, 2½ hrs) along an old drovers’ ridge that gives views north to the Gata range and, on very clear days, the distant outline of the Sierra de Francia. Spring brings orchids under the oaks; October smells of chestnut rot and wild boar disturbed by dogs.

What Turns Up on the Table

Evenings start early because the sun disappears behind the western crag at seven. Menus are short, prices gentle. Look for patatera, a soft, paprika-coloured sausage spread like pâté on toasted farmhouse bread—milder than chorizo and an easy introduction to Extremaduran pig craft. Hurdano soup is essentially potato, garlic and pimentón; ask for it sin cerdo if you want the vegetarian version. Finish with quesilla, a set custard that tastes like school-dinner caramel with better milk.

The only shop is a pulpería on the upper street, open 09:00-14:00 except Sunday and Monday. Stock is basic: tinned tuna, UHT milk, local honey with toasted walnuts (about €6 a jar, passes UK customs). There is no cashpoint; the last ATM is 7 km back down the hill in Nuñomoral, so fill your wallet before the final ascent.

When to Come, When to Stay Away

May and mid-September give 24 °C afternoons, green meadows and empty trails. August fiestas—drum parades, free-flowing queimada—are fun but loud; rooms in the three guest-houses sell out six months ahead. Winter is stark: blue skies, sharp frosts, and the occasional snowdrift that cuts the road for half a day. If you fancy proper solitude, February can be magical, but bring walking boots with ankle support and a jacket that blocks wind; the humid gorges make five degrees feel like minus two.

Driving after dark is not advised: the EX-204 from Cáceres is 90 km of tight bends and sudden cattle grids. Sat-navs occasionally confuse this Casares with the white village of the same name near Málaga—manually enter “Casares de las Hurdes, Cáceres” before you set off. Madrid is three-and-a-half hours away on paper; in reality you will average 50 km/h once the mountains start.

The Part Nobody Instagrams

Beyond the postcard core lies a scatter of 1970s breeze-block houses built when young men returned from Swiss building sites with savings and a taste for concrete. Satellite dishes bloom from slate roofs; a rusty Seat Toledo sits on bricks outside a barn that still shelters goats. This hybrid landscape is modern rural Spain: EU subsidies paying for new roofs while grandmothers hand-wash chickpeas in stone sinks. It is honest, and it photographs just as well once you adjust your angle.

Mobile signal is patchy. EE and Vodafone work on the main square if you stand near the fountain; step inside a 60-centimetre-thick wall and you drop to 3G at best. Treat it as permission to stop checking the cricket score.

A Realistic Itinerary

Base yourself two nights. Arrive late morning, walk the river loop before the sun tops the gorge, eat lunch under the chestnut trees, then siesta through the heat. Spend the evening wandering the lanes after the day-trippers leave—by 21:00 the only sound is the church bell striking the half-hour. Next morning drive 25 minutes to remote pinewood hamlets such as Cambrón, where storks nest on the school roof and the bar opens only when the owner hears your car.

Casares will not keep you busy for a week; it functions better as a slow fulcrum between Salamanca’s sandstone and the Roman bridges of Cáceres. Come for the temperature drop, the smell of resin, and the realisation that Spain still builds villages for people, not just for postcards.