Berzocana

The church bell strikes noon and the only reply is a dog barking somewhere below the plaza. Berzocana sits at 700 metres, high enough for your ears to pop on the drive up, yet the village itself feels level after the corkscrew approach from the almond groves of the Almonte valley. Stone houses, the colour of wet sand, shoulder right up to the lane; there are no pavements, so you step aside when a farmer in a Citroën C-15 rattles past with hay bales higher than the roof.

A village that keeps its doors shut

San Andrés, the parish church, is the one building that manages to look taller than the sierra behind it. British visitors usually expect it to be open – it isn’t. Mid-week mass happens roughly twice, and the priest drives in from Cañamero. Circle the outside anyway: the masonry changes colour halfway up the tower where fifteenth-century builders ran out of the good limestone and switched to local quartzite. That stone, glittering with mica, is what gives the Villuercas their razor-back ridges and what makes your calves scream if you attempt the GR-134 on a bicycle.

The streets inside the village are too narrow for two cars to pass, so residents leave their keys on the dash in case someone needs to nudge the vehicle forward. Tourists are rare enough that children still pause games of marbles to watch. Peek down the alleys and you’ll see stable doors painted the same municipal green as London’s park railings, only here the paint is flaking to reveal oak three inches thick. A few houses carry stone coats of arms – a fleur-de-lis here, a bull’s head there – reminders that families once financed an expedition to the Indies and came back with enough silver to add a second storey.

Lunch choices: one

By 13:30 the two bar-cafés on the main square pull down their shutters. Siesta is not a quaint tradition; it is the only defence against July temperatures that can still touch 36 °C at this altitude. The third option, the Hotel Rural Real’s dining room, stays open because it has to feed overnight guests. Expect a set-price menú del día (£14 in 2024) that starts with migas – fried breadcrumbs with garlic and grapes – followed by local pork shoulder slow-cooked in pimentón and a half-bottle of house red that tastes better than it should. Vegetarians can ask for patatas revolconas, but you will get chorizo on the side unless you protest twice. Payment is cash only; the nearest cash machine is an 18-kilometre descent to Cañamero, so fill your wallet before you climb.

Walking maps that lie

The tourist office in Guadalupe will hand you a free leaflet titled “Ruta Berzocana – Castañar” that promises a “gentle 5-km loop”. Gentle by Extremaduran standards means 250 metres of climb in the first kilometre. The path leaves the village past the fountain of the six spouts, where women once rinsed the family linen, then tips straight up through holm oaks and sweet chestnut. Quartzite scree skitters under walking shoes; the GR waymarks are white-over-red splodges painted by someone who clearly trusted goat footing more than human. Persevere and you reach a ridge that lets you see both the granite crest of the Villuercas and, far below, the silver thread of the Guadiana. Griffon vultures wheel overhead, wingspan the length of a London bus. The descent back to Berzocana is so steep your knees will remind you of the descent from Ben Nevis, only here the surface is loose shale that would make a Health-and-Safety officer weep.

Seasons when the village breathes differently

April brings almond blossom foaming white against grey stone; night temperatures can still drop to 4 °C, so pack a fleece even if the midday sun feels Mediterranean. May is the sweet spot: daylight until 21:15, wild marjoram scenting the paths, and only the occasional German cyclist for company. October means chestnut season – locals sack the forest floor, then stack the prickly burrs on every balcony to dry. The village smells of woodsmoke and caramelising starch; a kilo of freshly peeled nuts sells for €2 from a honesty box outside somebody’s garage. Winter is when Berzocana reverts to itself. Mist pools in the valley at dawn, mercury struggles to reach 8 °C, and the hotel pool is covered with a tarpaulin that sags under the weight of last night’s rain. Come then only if you enjoy silence loud enough to hear your own heartbeat.

Getting here without tears

Fly Stansted to Madrid, collect a hire car, and head west on the A-5. After two hours leave at Navalmoral de la Mata, fill the tank (the next petrol is 45 minutes away), and take the EX-118 south. The final 28 kilometres climb 600 metres through cork-oak forest where wild boar wander at dusk; switchbacks are signed at 10 % gradient but feel steeper. Expect to meet a lorry coming down the middle of the road carrying quartzite blocks for the kitchen-worktop trade; pull into the passing places and breathe. There is no bus all the way to Berzocana; the weekday service from Plasencia to Cañamero still leaves you with a 350-metre uphill hike on a lane without verge. Cycling looks tempting on Google Earth – it isn’t. British club riders have pushed their bikes for kilometres after discovering that what the Spanish call “moderado” translates as Alpine.

What you will not find

Gift shops. Evening entertainment beyond the hotel television. A cashpoint. Mobile signal inside certain stone houses. The certainty that the church, the ethnographic mini-museum or even the public loo will be open. Berzocana offers instead a calibration point for internal clocks: bread delivered at 09:00, the smell of dinner stew drifting out at 14:30, lights out by 23:00. If that rhythm suits you, stay a night, walk the quartzite ridges at sunrise and leave before the church bell remembers to count the hour.