Casillas de Coria

The church bell strikes noon, and the only other sound is water hissing through concrete channels beside the wheat fields. In Casillas de Coria, 245 m above sea level, the day is still governed by gravity-fed irrigation turns rather than smartphone alerts. With 337 inhabitants on the books—though fewer actually live here year-round—the village occupies a comma-shaped ridge that overlooks the Vegas del Alagón, a checkerboard of market gardens and corn plots stitched together by poplar windbreaks.

Fields that Keep the Clock

Arrive at first light and you’ll see the system in action: sluice gates lifted with a length of rebar, water fanning across plots of tomatoes and peppers destined for Saturday’s market in Coria, 18 km away. The channels, known locally as acequias, pre-date the 1952 dam on the Alagón River; their clay pipes and stone lids are maintained by the same comunidad de regantes that meets every quarter in the ayuntamiento’s front room. Visitors are welcome to walk the service paths that parallel the water—flat, shade-scarce circuits of 3–5 km that double as the village’s de-facto fitness trails. Take water; there are no fountains once you leave the houses behind.

Traditional architecture follows the same practical rhythm. Granite footings and slate roofs were hauled from the Sierra de Gata quarries 40 km west, assembled into one- and two-storey houses that sit directly on the street line. Iron balconies, deep enough for a geranium pot but not a chair, project just far enough to shake dust from a rug above the gutter. There is no historic quarter in the guide-book sense—only a continuum of modest dwellings that ends abruptly where the irrigation stops and the dehesa begins.

What Passes for a High Street

The single paved road is called, without irony, Avenida de Moraleja. It carries perhaps a dozen vehicles an hour in July, fewer in January. Halfway along, Bar La Plaza opens at 07:30 for café con leche and churros made by the owner’s sister-in-law in a back-room fryer. A full breakfast costs €3.50 if you stand at the counter, €4.20 at the solitary pavement table. Payment is still tallied in pencil on the marble bar; card machines arrive “next year,” the barman claims—he has been saying that since 2019.

Opposite, the panadería sells a 500 g loaf for €1.10, crust scored with the diamond pattern typical of Cáceres province. Bread appears only twice daily: 08:00 and 17:30. Miss the second batch and you’ll be offered yesterday’s, now relegated to migas duty. There is no supermarket, no cash machine, and—crucially—no petrol station. The nearest pumps are in Palomares, 12 km east, so fill up before you leave the A-66.

Eating by the Season, Not the Menu

Restaurants don’t exist here; you eat in houses or you don’t eat at all. The workaround is to book a table at the village sociedad, a members-only dining room that opens to outsiders on Friday and Saturday nights if you ring 48 hours ahead. Expect sopa de ajo thickened with bread baked that morning, then ternera con tomate from a steer raised on the surrounding pasture. The set price is €18 including house wine from Tierra de Barros; pudding is usually arroz con leche scented with local cinnamon. Vegetarians are politely accommodated with pisto—but the tomato base almost certainly contains scraps of jamón for sweetness, so state your case clearly.

If you prefer privacy, self-catering is straightforward. The mobile shop run by Hijos de Rivera rolls in every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00, parking by the church. Its refrigerated counter stocks Extremaduran morcilla spiced with pimentón de la Vera, vacuum-packed queso de oveja from Losar de la Vera, and seasonal fruit grown within 30 km. Bring cash—notes of €20 or smaller—because the driver’s data-roaming signal rarely cooperates with contactless machines.

Walking Off the Irrigation Grid

North of the last streetlamp, a cattle grid marks the start of the Cañada Real Leonesa, an ancient drove road now way-marked as the GR-84 long-distance path. A 9 km circular loop drops 150 m to the Alagón flood-plain, crosses a medieval stone bridge, then climbs back through cork-oak savannah where tostón (wild asparagus) sprouts in March. The route is way-marked but not way-provided: you will share the track with free-grazing retinta cows and the occasional shepherd on a Honda mule. Stout shoes are advisable; after rain the clay sticks like mortar.

Spring and autumn deliver the kindest temperatures—18-24 °C by day, cool enough at night for a jumper. Summer is furnace-hot; thermometers nudge 40 °C in July, and the village empties as families relocate to cousins in Cáceres. Winter brings crisp, windless mornings when the irrigation channels exhale ribbons of mist, but nights drop to zero and most bars close at 20:00 rather than 23:00.

When the Village Remembers Itself

Festivity is brief, intense, and incomprehensible to outsiders who haven’t done their homework. The fiesta patronal honouring Nuestra Señora de la Asunción lands on the weekend nearest 15 August. A sound system the size of a removal lorry is installed in the square; peñas (informal drinking clubs) compete to see who can keep sevillanas blasting until the generator cuts out. Visitors are welcome, but there is no programme in English, no tourist office, and nowhere to buy a souvenir T-shirt. Bring earplugs and a tolerant disposition.

Holy Week is the inverse spectacle: no processional brass bands, just a silent parade of twenty hooded nazarenos at 22:00 on Maundy Thursday, lit by a single drumbeat and the beam of the priest’s torch. Photographs are discouraged; stand at the back, hat off, phone in pocket.

In late November the matanza weekend revives the household economy. Pigs that have grazed the oak mast are slaughtered communally, and every cut—from snout to tail—is converted into chorizo, salchichón, and morcilla. Tourist boards elsewhere market this as a “gastronomic experience,” but here it remains private labour. An invitation is an honour; accept it and you’ll be handed an apron and put to work stirring cauldrons of paprika-scented fat. Decline politely and you’ll still leave with a paper parcel of freshly made chorizo—the village’s idea of a thank-you for showing interest without sensationalising.

Arrival, Beds, and the Art of Leaving

Driving from the UK, allow two full days via Santander or Bilbao. From the ferry, follow the A-66 to Plasencia, then the EX-390 to Coria and the CC-19 for the final 18 km. The last stretch is single-track with two blind summits; dip headlights and expect oncoming tractors straddling the centre line. Public transport is academic: one bus leaves Cáceres at 14:00 on weekdays, returns at 06:00 next morning, and is frequently cancelled if the driver is needed for a school run.

Accommodation consists of three village houses refurbished by the regional parador scheme. Each sleeps four, costs €70–90 per night, and must be booked through the provincial tourist office in Cáceres; the locals themselves cannot reserve them. Interiors retain original beams and stone sinks, but Wi-Fi is theoretical. If the houses are full, the nearest beds are in Coria’s hostals—functional, €45 a double—or at the rural posada in Palomares, where rooms face an orange grove and breakfast includes homemade mermelada de tomate.

Check-out is 12:00, but nobody will hurry you. The channels will still be running, the church bell will still count the hours, and the fields will keep their slow, watery calendar. Depart when the wheat’s colour tells you it’s time, and the village will simply close its gate behind you—no billboards, no gift shop, only the faint smell of paprika drifting from last night’s stoves.