Torre de Santa María

The church bell strikes eleven and the only other sound is a tractor ticking cool on the edge of the plaza. At 490 metres above sea-level, Torre de Santa María is already warm even in late April; by August the stone benches around the square are too hot to sit on until the sun drops behind the Sierra de Montánchez. This is a village that measures the day by heat and livestock, not by opening hours.

A white grid above the olive groves

Most visitors arrive from Cáceres, 50 km north-west on the EX-206, then peel off onto the CC-25. The road narrows, climbs gently and suddenly the settlement appears: a compact chessboard of white cubes set on a ridge. Park where the tarmac ends; the streets beyond are barely two metres wide and the post van has right of way.

Orientation takes five minutes. Every lane tilts towards the parish church, a fifteenth-century rebuild that borrowed Gothic ribs and Renaissance lintels as the centuries passed. Step inside and the interior smells of wax and grain sacks; the priest stores surplus olive oil in the sacristy because the shop next door ran out of shelf space years ago. Look up and you’ll see the wooden pulpit is carved with acorns and pig trotters, a quiet nod to the annual matanza that still punctuates the winter calendar.

Outside, house walls are thick enough to swallow the midday sun. Shutters are the colour of dried blood or oxidised copper; no-one can explain why, they simply “came like that from the factory in Plasencia”. The occasional satellite dish clings like a limpet, angled south to catch the signal over the neighbouring ridge.

What grows between the stones

Walk to the village edge and the ground falls away in ripples of dehesa – open oak pasture where black Iberian pigs root for acorns between February and April. Beyond that, olive terraces march in grey-green ranks until the next ridge blurs into summer haze. The contrast with the irrigated market gardens of the Alagón valley, only twenty minutes down the hill, is sharp: up here rainfall is shy, soil is thin and every drop that lands on a roof is still channelled into a cistern.

Locals will tell you the altitude matters. Frost can bite as late as May, so almond blossom arrives three weeks after the valley floors. In July the thermometer can lurch past 38 °C by mid-morning, yet after midnight it may fall below 20 °C – perfect, they say, for sleeping under a single cotton blanket. British visitors used to Devon drizzle should pack a fleece even in June; the wind that funnels up from the plains can feel unexpectedly Baltic.

Eating at the pace of the fire

There is no tasting menu, no chalkboard of “elevated” tapas. Lunch is served at 14:30 and the choice is short: migas fried in chorizo fat, garlic soup thickened with yesterday’s bread, or cordero a la miel – shoulder of lamb slow-cooked until the bone slides out like a spoon. Portions are built for field workers; half raciones are tolerated but not encouraged. Expect to pay €12–14 for the daily three-course comida, bread and a quarter-litre of local red that stains the glass purple. Vegetarians can usually negotiate a plate of setas (wild mushrooms) if the morning’s forager has been lucky.

The only restaurant, Mesón La Torre, occupies a former grain store opposite the church. Tables are shared; conversation drifts across in Castilian spiced with the Extremaduran “h” that swallows final syllables. If you need coffee afterwards, cross the square to the bar that doubles as the village betting shop; the machine grinds beans for €1.20 but the barman will ask whether you want it “normal” (black) or “con leche condensada” – the local sweet tooth dies hard.

Walking without way-markers

Official hiking leaflets do not exist, yet the paths are obvious to anyone who can read a contour line. From the upper cemetery a farm track continues south along the ridge, dropping after 3 km to the hamlet of Valdefuentes where an iron fountain gushes potable water all year. Allow 45 minutes down, an hour back up; take 1.5 litres per person in July. Spring brings carpets of purple crocus and the distant clang of cowbells; autumn smells of wet thyme and gunpowder from the montería hunts.

If that sounds too gentle, drive 10 minutes to the sanctuary of Virgen de la Sierra above Montánchez and pick up the GR-134 long-distance footpath. The circuit back to Torre de Santa María is 17 km and involves 600 m of ascent; midday shade is non-existent and mobile coverage vanishes after the first pass. Print the track the night before – the tourist office in Cáceres will do it for 40 céntimos – and start at dawn unless you enjoy negotiating thorny oak scrub in 35 °C heat.

When the village turns itself inside out

Fiestas begin on 15 August with a midday mass followed by a communal paella cooked in a pan two metres wide. Visitors are welcome to queue for a plate (€3 donation to the brass band) but must bring their own spoon. Evening events are low-key: bingo in the plaza, a foam machine for children, and a disco that winds up by 02:00 because the livestock still needs feeding. Accommodation is impossible without prior booking; most British travellers base themselves in medieval Cáceres and drive up for the day.

December smells of wood smoke and rendered pork. Families slaughter one pig each, hang the hams in the attic and spend three days making chorizo and morcilla. There is no public spectacle – tourists who arrive hoping for photo opportunities will be met with polite bafflement. The butcher, however, will sell you a 2 kg shoulder if you ask before 10 a.m.; he keeps a chalk tally on the door for locals and strangers alike.

Beds, petrol and other practicalities

The village has no hotel. Four village houses rent rooms by the night (€45–60, cash only, no website). The smartest, Casa de la Tia Pilar, has thick towels and a roof terrace that faces west into the sunset; book through the Cáceres tourist office and collect the key from the baker. Wi-Fi exists but routers are switched off at midnight to save electricity. There is no petrol station; the nearest pump is 14 km away in Montánchez and closes at 20:00. If you are running low, ask at the agricultural co-op – someone will siphon 10 litres from the tractor reserve for €1.40 a litre, but you need to supply your own jerrycan.

Pharmacy, ATM and fresh milk all require a 25-minute drive down to the Alagón valley. Locals treat the journey as routine; visitors should stock up before arriving, especially over weekends when rural Spain still observes the siesta that lasts until 17:00.

The catch in the quiet

Torre de Santa María is not undiscovered – Spanish weekenders have been buying ruined cottages here since 2005 – but it remains indifferent to the idea of being “discovered”. There are no gift shops, no olive-oil tastings in vaulted cellars, no yoga retreats among the almond blossom. If the church is locked, ask at the house with the green gate opposite; the sacristan will appear in slippers, but he may be out harvesting. Come expecting three hours of gentle wandering and you will leave content. Arrive armed with a checklist of “must-see sights” and you will drive away within 45 minutes, slightly baffled and very thirsty.

The village rewards patience, not itineraries. Sit long enough in the plaza and someone will offer directions to the fountain that runs with cold water even in August, or warn you that the ridge path is blocked by a boar hunter’s dogs. Accept the conversation; it lasts longer than the monuments and lingers in memory far beyond the whitewashed walls.