Fuentes de León

The village clock strikes two and every shadow disappears. At 741 m above sea level the air is still thin enough to feel sharp in the lungs, yet the summer sun burns with the same force it exerts on the Seville lowlands 120 km away. This is the first contradiction visitors notice in Fuentes de León: you are unmistakably in the mountains, but the horizon stretches like a prairie. Oak after oak, their trunks wider than a London bus is long, rolls southwards until the land folds into Portugal.

A grid of chalk and granite

No one gets lost here. Three parallel streets run along the ridge, linked by alleys just wide enough for a tractor and its trailer of acorns. House walls are painted the colour of fresh yoghurt up to shoulder height, then capped with slate-grey stone. The look is practical rather than pretty: the dark base hides rain splash and tractor grease, the white reflects July heat. Halfway along Calle Real the Iglesia de San Juan Bautista squats on its plinth like a heavyweight boxer, towers shortened after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees; the stone floor is uneven from centuries of parishioners’ boots, and the brass lamps still burn olive oil, not candles. Donations box by the door: €1 buys a week’s worth of wicks.

Walk another hundred metres and you reach the public washing troughs, built in 1927 when mains water arrived. Older women still rinse tablecloths here on Monday mornings, partly from habit, partly because the spring water stays at a constant 14 °C and shifts wine stains better than any biological powder. The sight stops the casual stroller: bright fabric floating in grey stone tanks, the only splash of colour in a palette otherwise limited to earth tones.

The forest that pays the bills

Leave the last street lamp behind and you are instantly inside the dehesa, Europe’s most profitable woodland. Each holm oak is spaced wide enough for sheep to graze between, yet close enough for their acorns to fatten black-footed pigs. From October to February the animals devour up to ten kilos of acorns a day; the resulting ham retails in London for £180 a leg. Farmers here call the system “cultivo sin arar” – farming without ploughing – and it has gone on since the Knights Templar managed the land in the 13th century.

A way-marked loop, the Senda de la Dehesa, starts at the cemetery gate and takes ninety minutes to complete. The gradient is gentle but the path is stony; trainers are fine, sandals are not. Midway round you pass the Cerro de la Mora, a natural balcony where the village drops out of sight and the view opens to twenty kilometres of uninterrupted tree canopy. Bring binoculars: griffon vultures ride the thermals at eye level, and in late August migrant bee-eaters flare past like green arrows.

If you prefer a longer haul, drive ten minutes up a dirt road to the Puerto de los Castaños. From here an old mule track descends 400 m to the Múrtigas river, its poplar banks a favourite wallow for wild boar. Return the same way and the climb will raise a sweat even in December; allow three hours and carry more water than you think necessary – the tap at the trailhead dried up in last year’s drought.

When to come, when to stay away

Spring is the kindest season. Daytime highs sit in the low twenties, night-time lows need a jumper, and the dehesa glows emerald after winter rain. The village fiesta falls on the last weekend of April; two nights of flamenco outdoors, one afternoon of piglet racing round the bullring, and free-flowing fino generously dispensed by the local cooperative. Book accommodation early: there are only three rental cottages inside the historic core, and the nearest hotel is 25 km away in Zafra.

Autumn brings the montanera, when pigs gorge on acorns and the air smells of fermenting fruit. Mornings are golden, afternoons still warm enough for shirt sleeves, but dusk arrives suddenly at six. British half-term week coincides with peak ham curing activity; tours of the processing plant can be arranged through the tourist office (€5, minimum six people) and end with a tasting that ruins supermarket jamón for life.

Summer is workable if you adopt the siesta rhythm. Hike at seven, retreat indoors by eleven, venture out again after six. The village swimming pool – a 1980s concrete rectangle on the northern edge – costs €2 a day and stays open until 10 p.m., floodlit and surrounded by hawthorn hedges alive with nightingales. Winter is quiet, often misty, and surprisingly cold. Night frosts are common; the one B&B keeps its central heating off until guests appear. On the plus side you get the trails to yourself, and the local bar serves cocido extremeno, a chickpea and morcilla stew hefty enough to negate any chill.

Eating without theatrics

Forget tasting menus. What arrives on the plate is dictated by the dehesa calendar. October to March: jamón ibérico de bellota, the fat so soft it melts at room temperature, served in paper-thin sheets with nothing more than village bread rubbed with tomato. April to June: lamb chops from merino sheep that grazed the same acorns, grilled over holm-oak embers and priced at €12 a kilo in the butcher opposite the town hall. July to September: migas, breadcrumbs fried in pork fat with garlic and grapes, a dish invented to use up stale bread and best eaten at eleven in the morning with a cold beer.

The only restaurant inside the village, La Dehesa Extremeña, looks like someone’s front room because it is. Three tables, lace curtains, grandmother behind the hob. There is no printed menu; she tells you what she cooked today. Expect a three-course lunch with wine for €11, cash only, and don’t even think about asking for vegetarian options. If that sounds too austere, drive 15 minutes to the Venta de Aires, a roadside inn since 1782, where the wine list includes a surprisingly quaffable Rueda at €14 a bottle and the waiters still wear black waistcoats.

The practical bit

Fuentes de León sits 95 km south of Badajoz airport, currently served by no UK airlines. Fly to Seville instead (two hours from Heathrow, Gatwick or Manchester), pick up a hire car and head north on the A-66. Leave at exit 737, follow the EX-101 for 19 km, then watch for the brown sign. Petrol stations are scarce after Zafra; fill up there. The village has no cash machine, and neither the cave office nor the bar takes cards. Bring euros.

Parking is free but unstructured; leave the car on the main square and walk everywhere. The tourist office keeps eccentric hours – officially 10–14.00, but if the door is locked ring the bell at the town hall and the secretary will appear with maps. Cave tours must be booked by 19.00 the previous day (telephone +34 924 55 20 18; Spanish only). Groups are capped at fifteen; if numbers are low they will run the trip in Spanish, but the guide usually rustles up a two-minute English summary at each stop.

Parting shot

Fuentes de León will not change your life. It offers no Instagram cathedrals, no boutique hotels, no craft-gin distilleries. What it does give is a lesson in scale: how small a community can be and still function, how large a landscape can feel when no motorway cuts through it, how much flavour an acorn can transmit to a pig. Arrive expecting theme-park Spain and you will leave within an hour. Arrive prepared to slow down, and the place seeps under your skin like woodsmoke in a jumper. Three days is enough; any longer and the silence starts sounding like a question.