Ladrillar

The slate roofs of Ladrillar still hold yesterday’s rain. Walk the single main lane at seven in the morning and you’ll hear it—thin streams dripping from stone gutters into the stone troughs below, the only soundtrack apart from a cock crow and the clatter of a goat kicking a tin. With 184 registered neighbours, the village is small even by Hurdes standards, yet it feels larger than its numbers because the valley keeps opening: chestnut woods climb north, the Alagón river slips south-west, and every terrace you see was once hand-won for rye or potatoes.

Slate, Woodsmoke and a River that Thinks it’s a Coast

Houses here are built for the slope. Ground floor for the beast, upper floor for the family, chimney dead-centre so smoke warms both. The stone is local, the timber is chestnut, and the balconies—narrow, dark, hinged with iron—could pass for miniature ship decks. That nautical hint is not fantasy: until the 1950s mule trains hauled chestnut barrel staves down to the river, lashed them into rafts and floated them to the Tagus, effectively giving this land-locked hamlet a freight line to Lisbon. Ask in the shop-cum-bar and the owner, Jesús, will show you a photograph of his grandfather waist-deep in water, guiding a raft with a single oar.

The river still matters. A ten-minute drive (or a steep hour on foot) brings you to Riomalo de Abajo where the Alagón has carved out a string of natural pools. The water is mountain-cold but not breath-stopping; on summer Saturdays it fills with Spanish families and the occasional British camper who has read the wild-swimming forums. Arrive before eleven, park on the eastern verge of the track (shade from walnut trees), and bring rubber shoes—algae makes the ladder treacherous. For a quicker dip use the concrete steps below the HU-210 bridge; five minutes from car to water, depth marked at 1.8 m.

Walking without Waymarks

Ladrillar is not a place of ticketed attractions. The church, dedicated to the Assumption, is unlocked only for mass at 11 a.m. Sundays; the rest of the time you view its slate bulk from the lane and note how the tower leans two degrees east, a legacy of the 1953 flood that undermined the foundations. What the village does offer is paths that start where the tarmac ends. One climbs north-east through abandoned terraces to the Cerezal pass (1 ½ hrs, 350 m gain) then drops into the next valley, emerging at the ghost hamlet of Adarve where one house has been patched up as a weekend retreat by a sculptor from Seville. Another route follows the river gorge westwards to the medieval bridge at La Huetre; the trail is clear but not sign-posted, and after heavy rain you’ll be wading through brambles and shoulder-high fennel. The tourist office in Caminomorisco—open Tuesday to Thursday—will print a 1:25 000 excerpt if you ask politely, but locals still navigate by the shape of the next ridge.

Food that Tastes of the Woods

There is only one restaurant, Casa Juan, and it keeps the hours of its neighbours: lunch 2–4 p.m., dinner 9–11 p.m., closed Tuesday and Wednesday outside July–August. The menu is short and seasonal. In October you get chestnut and bean stew, mildly sweet, the beans kept firm and the chestnuts more vegetable than dessert. Weekends bring kid goat, marinated overnight in wild thyme and honey from hives that sit three kilometres up the valley; order before noon or it will be gone. The cheese course is quesilla, a set-custard flan without the caramel, pleasantly bland for British palates that recoil from the sharper Spanish tortas. A three-course lunch with wine runs to €19; they don’t take cards, so bring cash—there is no ATM in the village and the nearest petrol pump is 23 km away in Pinofranqueado.

If you are self-catering, the tiny co-op shop opens 9–1, sells local chorizo (air-dried in the back room for forty days), three sorts of honey, and vacuum-packed trout caught that dawn in the Alagón. Bread arrives from the regional bakery at 11; by 11.30 the rack is empty.

When to Come, When to Stay Away

April and May are the gentle months. Daytime hovers around 18 °C, nights drop to 8 °C, and the chestnut leaves unfurl the colour of wet lime. The village wakes up: vegetable plots are turned, goats are moved to higher pasture, and every family burns last winter’s pruning. The smoke drifts across the lane like incense—photographers love it, asthmatics less so.

July and August are hot (32 °C by three o’clock) but bearable if you stick to the river. Weekend crowds triple the population; locals rent spare rooms for €30 a night, cash in hand, breakfast not included. By ten o’clock on Saturday the pools resemble municipal lidos, so come mid-week if you want quiet water.

October brings mushroom hunters. Boletus and níscalos appear after the first autumn rain; you need a free permit from the Caminomorisco town hall and a basket—plastic bags are fined. The woods smell of leaf mould and wet bark, and the village smells of woodsmoke again.

Winter is stark. At 650 m the valley traps cold; temperatures can fall to –5 °C and the HU-210 is occasionally closed after snow. Only two houses take overnight guests year-round; heating is by pellet stove and you pay €5 extra per sack. If you do come, the reward is silence so complete you hear the river over the ridge two kilometres away.

Getting There, Getting Out

You need a car. From Madrid Barajas it is three hours on the A-5 to Navalmoral, then the EX-390 into the hills. The final 28 km on the HU-210 is paved but narrow; meeting a lorry means one of you reverses to the nearest passing bay. There is no petrol after Caminomorisco and phone signal dies at the Mirador de La Aceña—download your map before you leave the plateau. The Monday bus from Plasencia was cancelled in 2021; the nearest railway is at Plasencia (2 h 15 min drive), but car hire desks close at 6 p.m. Plan accordingly.

Leave time for the slow route out. Turn right at Las Mestas and follow the valley floor south until the road meets the Alagón reservoir. The water backs up for fifteen kilometres, turning mountain gorge into fjord-like lake. Slate villages slide down to the shore as if they were always meant to meet the sea—even if the sea is fresh water and the boats are only fishing dinghies. It is the nearest Ladrillar gets to a coastline these days, and a reminder that every settlement here was once measured by how close it could get to moving water, whether for timber, trout, or simply the sound of something travelling further than you ever will today.