Portezuelo

The clock strikes three and the village loudspeaker crackles to life. A voice recites the afternoon prayer, echoing off whitewashed walls and down the single main street. In Portezuelo, population two hundred and change, this counts as rush hour.

Forty-five kilometres north-east of Cáceres, the A-road narrows to a lane so abruptly that sat-navs panic. You arrive with the feeling you've taken a wrong turn, yet the place name is clearly painted on a stone slab: Portezuelo, Las Vegas del Alagón. No casinos here—just a wedge ofExtremaduran countryside where holm oaks outnumber humans and every household seems to keep both a dog and a vegetable patch.

A Village Measured in Footsteps

Park anywhere; the verge works. The whole urban centre is four streets long and two deep. Start at the church of San Bartolomé, a sun-bleached rectangle of masonry that took its last serious battering during the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The tower was rebuilt lower and squatter—practical masonry for a parish that never had cash to spare. Step inside if the wooden door is ajar; the interior smells of candle wax and floor polish, with a nave just wide enough for the twenty-odd Sunday regulars.

From the church door you can see both ends of the village without turning your head. Walk south and the tarmac gives way to compacted earth; walk north and you’re past the last house in 120 seconds. The architecture is what estate agents would call “honest”: granite footings, ochre plaster, Arabic tiles nicked from nearby medieval sites. Iron balconies sag under geraniums that clearly know who’s boss. Peer through an open gateway and you’ll catch a flash of courtyard—grapevine, plastic table, radio muttering the livestock prices.

There is no ticket office, no interpretation board, no gift shop. The closest thing to signage is a hand-painted tile that reads “Se vende huevos” tied to a front door. Ring the bell and someone’s grandmother will sell you half a dozen for a euro.

The Dehesa Begins Where the Tarmac Ends

Leave the houses behind and you hit the dehesa, the agro-woodland that pays the bills round here. Holm and cork oaks scatter themselves across ochre grass like an afterthought. In October the ground under the oaks is littered with acorns fat enough to tempt passing pigs; in March it’s a carpet of rockrose and tiny narcissus. The paths are farm tracks, not way-marked trails—two parallel ruts made by decades of tractors and the occasional 4×4. They fork every kilometre or so, usually at a gate held shut with loop of rusty wire.

A thirty-minute stroll west brings you to the seasonal Alagón tributary. When it flows, the water is ankle-deep and clear enough to watch tadpoles ricochet between stones. When it doesn’t, the riverbed becomes a linear meadow where bee-eaters perch on the overhead cables. Either way, you’ll share the path with tawny cows wearing bells the size of teacups. Give them a wide berth; they’re mild-tempered but curious, and a hoof on your foot ruins the afternoon.

Serious walkers sometimes try to stitch the tracks into a loop. The gamble is that gates have a habit of vanishing into bramble, or terminating at a private finca where a mastiff the colour of midnight decides you’re trespassing. Locals advise carrying a downloaded map, plenty of water and the humility to retrace your steps. Mobile signal flickers in and out; Google assumes you’re interested in a beach resort in Chile.

What Passes for Cuisine

Portezuelo has no restaurants. It does have a bar, open only on weekend evenings and fiesta days, where the owner’s nephew grills whatever the family didn’t sell at the morning market. Order a caña and you’ll be asked whether you want “lo normal”—a plate of jamón ibérico, migas fried in pork fat, and a slab of torta del Casar so runny it has to be spooned. The bill rarely tops €12, cash only. Vegetarians get a sympathetic shrug and an omelette.

If you’re self-catering, knock on doors. Most households produce something: honey in old cola bottles, morcilla tied with string, or quartered chickens vacuum-packed by daughters who’ve migrated to Madrid. The nearest supermarket is 18 km away in Coria; locals treat the weekly run like a day trip.

Timing Your Visit

Spring is the money season. By late March the nights still drop to 8 °C but the afternoons hit 22 °C and the dehesa glows an almost Irish green. Storks return to rebuild their chimney-top nests; the village loudspeaker adds a dawn chorus of chicks. Accommodation within Portezuelo itself is limited to one three-room guesthouse, booked solid during Semana Santa by returning emigrants. Better base yourself in Coria or Plasencia and drive in for the day.

Autumn runs a close second. The acorn drop turns the landscape into a free-range buffet; pig herders appear with long sticks and a chorus of whistles. October mornings smell of damp bark and woodsmoke; the light is so sharp you could slice bread with it. Bring layers—temperatures swing fifteen degrees between 7 a.m. and noon.

Summer is doable only if you enjoy solitude and siestas. July routinely hits 40 °C; shade is precious and the village shuts between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. The bar opens at nine and stays lively until the small hours, but don’t expect ice. Winter is crisp, often bright, and eerily quiet. An overnight frost can leave the cobbles treacherous; by 5 p.m. the streets are dark enough to need a torch.

The Catch

Portezuelo is not undiscovered—it’s simply too small to register on the tourist radar. That means no public toilets, no ATM, and no pharmacist. Sunday lunch is whatever you thought to buy on Saturday. If the church is locked (most weekdays), the only indoor attraction is the inside of your car. Rain turns the tracks into ochre porridge; wellies become essential fashion.

Nor is it frozen in time. Half the houses are weekend homes for families who left for Barcelona in the 1970s. Their reunions fill the silence with reggaeton drifting from Bluetooth speakers, a useful reminder that “authentic” is a moving target.

Getting There and Away

From the UK, fly to Madrid, collect a hire car, and head west on the A-5 for three hours. Turn north at Navalmoral de la Mata on the EX-118, then follow signs for Casas del Castañar and finally Portezuelo. Fuel up before you leave the trunk road; the last petrol pump is twenty-five kilometres out and closes for lunch. Buses from Cáceres reach the neighbouring village of Aldea del Cano on schooldays only; after that you’re hitch-hiking with the bread van.

Leave the sat-nav spinning. When the tarmac stops, you’re there. Switch off the engine, listen for the bells, and decide whether two hundred souls and a million oak trees constitute civilisation enough.