Nuñomoral

The slate roofs of Nunomoral turn silver when it rains, a momentary shimmer across the hillside before the stone darkens back to charcoal. At 478 metres above sea-level, this cluster of 1,200 souls sits wedged between the Hurdano river and slopes thick with chestnut and oak. Nobody arrives by accident: the EX-204 from Cáceres wriggles 80 km through cork-oak country and demands a steady hand on the wheel. Coaches do not run here. The nearest railway line gave up in 1985.

Mistake the place for a postcard and it will baffle you. There is no plaza mayor framed by geraniums, no honey-coloured Renaissance arcade. Instead, narrow lanes climb past houses that appear to have been poured rather than built, their masonry walls the same grey-brown as the ground beneath. Roofs are weighted with local slate to stop the winter wind peeling them off. Timber balconies, no wider than a single plank, project just far enough to shake out a tablecloth. The overall effect is practical, almost defensive; the village looks as if it is bracing itself against the mountain.

Start at the parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, the one landmark tall enough to act as reference point. The tower is square, sturdy, nineteenth-century, and its bells still mark the quarters of an agricultural day. From the porch, three streets fan out like contour lines; take any of them and you will soon be walking uphill. Ten minutes is enough to reach the upper lanes where elderly residents sit in kitchen chairs, doorframes providing the only shade. They will return a greeting but rarely initiate conversation; outsiders are noted, not courted.

Below the houses the river scrapes a stony course. Follow the rough track that drops past the last vegetable plots and you reach a series of chest-deep pools separated by slate ledges. In late May the water is high enough to swim, though the temperature rarely climbs above sixteen degrees. By late August the flow shrinks to a trickle and laundry baskets appear on the flat rocks, women scrubbing shirts the way their grandmothers did. Signs prohibit cars but no barrier exists; the place is policed by social pressure and the certainty that a misplaced wheel will strand the driver on boulders.

Walk far enough downstream and you meet the first of the old chestnut mills, roofless now but with the grinding stone still in situ. They once produced flour for winter stews; today the nuts are sold in twenty-kilo sacks to merchants from Plasencia who truck them north for marrón glacé. Between October and early November the forest floor is carpeted with spiky casings, and the air smells faintly of tannin. Wild boar like the crop too; fresh trotter prints in the mud mean they visited the night before. Seeing the animals themselves is possible but unlikely: they hear you long before you hear them.

The village calendar is stubbornly seasonal. Mid-August fiestas bring back emigrants who left for Barcelona or Madrid; the population doubles for three days of processions, brass bands and outdoor dinners that finish at three in the morning. A temporary bar serves ice-cold beer from a polystyrene cool-box; teenagers compare tattoos while their grandparents play mus, a Basque card game that has somehow migrated west. Fireworks echo off the surrounding slopes and terrify the hunting dogs tied up in back yards.

Autumn belongs to matanza, the family pig slaughter. Regulations now stipulate veterinary inspection, so fewer households keep the tradition, yet the aroma of paprika and garlic still drifts from ground-floor kitchens where chorizos hang from ceiling hooks. Visitors cannot simply wander in, but if you book a table at the only comedor open year-round you will be offered cocido de matanza, a chickpea stew thick with morcilla and fatback. The price is €10 including a glass of local red that stains the glass purple.

Spring brings the kindest walking weather. A way-marked but unsignposted loop climbs 250 m to the abandoned hamlet of Riomalo de Arriba, three kilometres upstream. The path starts between two concrete garages at the top of the village; beyond the last allotment it narrows to a goat track that sidles across shale. Buzzards mew overhead, and the only other sound is your boots dislodging stones that clatter into the gorge. Allow ninety minutes up, one hour back, and carry water: the only fountain en route dried up in last summer’s drought.

Winter daylight is scarce. The sun drops behind the Sierra de Gata shortly after four o’clock, and temperatures can flirt with zero even at midday. Mist pools in the valley so thickly that the church tower becomes a ship’s prow cleaving through cloud. This is mushroom season; locals head for the higher cork groves with curved knives and wicker baskets, returning with boletus edulis they will sauté in olive oil and freeze for the year. Foreign foragers are viewed with suspicion; guidance from an acknowledged expert is the price of admission to the woods.

Practicalities are straightforward, up to a point. The sole grocery opens 09:00-13:00 and 17:00-20:00; bread arrives frozen and is finished by noon. There is no cash machine—bring euros. Petrol is sold from a pump outside the agricultural co-op, but the owner may be tending goats when you call. Mobile reception is patchy; Vodafone works on the upper streets, Orange only by the river. Accommodation is limited to three village houses registered as casas rurales (two doubles from €60, kitchen included). Book by ringing the municipality tourist office; English is spoken slowly but willingly.

Rain can make the access road treacherous. After heavy storms the EX-204 sheds fist-sized rocks that collect on the inside of bends; hire-car insurance rarely covers ruptured sumps. Snow chains are obligatory above 600 m between December and March, though the village itself sits just below that threshold. If the weather forecast mentions borrasca, postpone the trip: being marooned is picturesque for roughly two hours, after which the novelty wears thin.

Leave Nunomoral before nightfall and you will glimpse its lights strung along the slope like low stars, a reminder that electricity only arrived in 1962. The place offers no souvenir shops, no interpretive centre, no flamenco nights for coach parties. What it does provide is a chance to calibrate your watch against a calendar set by acorns, river flow and the gestation period of goats. If that sounds like an insufficient return on a three-hour drive, book somewhere else. If it sounds like time well spent, pack walking boots and arrive hungry.