Casas de Don Antonio

The church bell strikes eleven and the only other sound is a tractor ticking cool in the shade. Casas de Don Antonio, population 184, is awake but not hurried. At 405 m above the soft folds of the Sierra de Montánchez, the air carries the resin of holm oak and, when the wind swings east, the metallic tang of grazing sheep. This is countryside that measures time by acorn fall and pig-fattening, not by tour coaches.

A village that fits in one breath

The settlement plan is simple: one cobbled lane climbs from the main road to the plaza, passes the single-steepled parish church, then dissolves into dirt tracks that fan out towards cork oak and olive groves. Most houses are whitewashed farmsteads with half doors, brick chimneys and the occasional iron balcony painted racing-green. Nothing is postcard-perfect; render flakes, geraniums dry out, dogs nap in the gutter. That is the appeal. You can walk every street in twenty minutes, yet the details keep the eyes busy: a 19th-century stone trough still fed by a copper pipe, a bread oven built into a side wall, house numbers written on glazed tiles by a local who ran out of space and started stacking the digits vertically.

Because the village sits on a mild ridge, views open in three directions. North-east you see the higher summits of the sierra, cresting at 995 m; south-west the land sinks gently towards the Alagón reservoir, a silver thread glimpsed through heat haze. The dehesa – the scattered evergreen woodland that doubles as pasture – presses right up to the back gardens. Wild asparagus sprouts beside the path in March; by October the same verge is picked clean by villagers who know the plants by family reputation.

What passes for monuments

The Iglesia Parroquial de San Antonio has no great artistic catalogue entry. It is, however, the geographic and social pivot. Services are sung only twice a month unless someone dies or marries, but the building stays unlocked. Inside, the cool smells of wax and sun-baked stone mingle. A modest baroque retablo fills the apse; side chapels hold painted wooden saints whose faces have been refreshed so often they look mildly surprised to still be here. If you want to climb the tower you ask for Paco at number 17; he keeps the key between goat-feeding and paperwork, and will accept a couple of euros for the bell-ringer’s guild.

Opposite the church, the old schoolhouse is now the sala multiusos, a catch-all space for physio visits, Wi-Fi (patchy), and the Saturday showing of whatever Madrid is currently winning at. Opening hours follow the caretaker’s rheumatism, so peer through the glass and move on.

Eating calendar, not menu

There is no restaurant. Hospitality is measured in invitations. Visitors who appear during the August fiestas will probably be handed a plastic cup of rebujito by a teenager practising English learned in Mérida, but for the rest of the year you eat what the season dictates. Between November and February that means the products of the matanza: blood sausage spiced with pimentón de la Vera, shoulder ham cured over oak smoke, and patatera, a soft sausage coloured deep paprika-red. A bar in the next village, 7 km away, serves these on earthenware plates with local torta del casar cheese; expect to pay €10 for a sharing board and another €2 for a caña of lager.

Spring brings técula mécula, an almond cake so rich it was supposedly reserved for the priest and the doctor. Any household oven will produce one for a birthday; the trick is asking the right day. Summer is for migas – fried breadcrumbs riddled with garlic and grapes – eaten at outdoor tables while the thermometers still read 30 °C at nine o’clock. If you are self-catering, the mobile fruit van arrives Tuesday and Friday at 10:30; the fish van, smelling of ice and sea despite the 120 km from the Atlantic, comes Thursday around noon. Both toot their horns like fairground attractions.

Tracks for boots, hooves and history

Casas de Don Antonio works best as a base for short, way-marked circuits that dip into the dehesa and link with neighbouring hamlets. The 6 km Ruta de la Umbría leaves from the petrol shrine at the village entrance, descends past abandoned olive terraces, then climbs through umbrella pines to a ridge where griffon vultures circle at eye level. The path is easy but stony; trainers suffice outside summer. A longer option follows an old drovers’ road south-east towards Montánchez town, passing a stone venta ruined since the railway closed. Allow three hours and carry water; the only bar en route opens randomly when a hunter fancies coffee.

Cyclists on gravel bikes can thread together farm tracks to reach the castle at Montánchez (17 km, 450 m ascent) or spin north on quiet tarmac to Arroyomolinos, where a small reservoir allows swimming in July and August. Mountain bikers should note that the signposted MTB centre is actually 35 km away in Villuercas; local farmers tolerate passage but dislike Strava races scattering sheep.

When to come, when to stay away

April and May tint the meadows yellow with Spanish broom and the temperature hovers around 22 °C – perfect for walking without the sun drilling holes in your hat. September light is softer, acorns plop, and the night sky clears enough to see the Milky Way from the plaza. Mid-July to mid-August is fierce: 38 °C by mid-afternoon, when even the swallows pant. The village emptiles into shuttered silence between 14:00 and 19:00; sensible visitors follow suit, reading or napping in whichever casa rural has thick stone walls.

Winter is a gamble. Bright days touch 14 °C and the dehesa smells of damp earth and wood smoke. A week of *la *can be magical – no traffic, clear air, pork stews. But if the Atlantic fronts stall, mud seals the side roads and walking becomes a slip-slide through clay that laughs at Gore-Tex. Accommodation is not insulated to British standards; pack layers and expect the shower to gasp before it glows.

Beds, keys and other logistics

Casas de Don Antonio has two officially registered casas rurales, each sleeping four to six. Casa Pizarro (€90 per night) preserves its original poleo-scented kitchen and adds decent Wi-Fi; La Dehesa (€110) has a roof terrace overlooking pig fields. Both get booked for the August fiesta and the November matanza weekends; reserve by email at least a month ahead. There is no hotel, no campsite, and the nearest hostel beds are in Montánchez, a 20-minute drive along a road that narrows alarmly when two tractors meet.

Public transport is theoretical. One bus leaves Cáceres at 14:15, reaches the village 16:00, returns at 06:45 next day – fine for an overnight, useless for a day trip. A car is essential; parking is wherever the verge is widest. The closest reliable petrol is in Almoharín, 18 km back towards the motorway. Stock up before you arrive.

The bottom line

Casas de Don Antonio will not keep you busy from dawn to midnight. It offers instead a calibration point: a place where lunch is still the main event, where the loudest noise at 22:00 is the church clock, and where the surrounding woods contain more Iberian pigs than people. Stay a couple of nights, walk until your boots smell of wild thyme, accept a slice of almond cake if offered, then drive on before the silence starts feeling like a wager. The village will not mind – it has been here since the Reconquest, and it plans to outlast us all.