Puebla de Sancho Pérez

The thermometer on the bank façade read 32 °C at eleven in the morning, yet the plaza still felt breathable. At 540 metres above sea level, Puebla de Sancho Pérez sits just high enough for the summer air to thin before it suffocates, a quirk that explains why locals in the Badajoz province treat 10 a.m. like the middle of the afternoon. British visitors expecting Andalucían furnace heat are usually surprised: it’s hot, yes, but not the dripping, sultry kind you find on the coast. Nights drop to 17 °C in July, perfect for leaving windows open, though January evenings can hover at 3 °C and feel colder once the wind scythes across the olive groves.

A grid of white walls and wrought-iron that happens to ferment

Start at the Plaza Mayor, a rectangle the size of a football pitch paved in ochre stone. Elderly men occupy the metal benches in strict rotation; the same faces appear at 08:00 for the pregón of gossip, again at noon for the shade, and once more after the 20:00 news. The church tower, 18th-century baroque with a dash of neo-classical restraint, gives the only vertical punctuation to an otherwise flat skyline. Step inside San Pedro Apóstol and you’ll find retablos gilded enough to satisfy any Latin itch for drama, yet the building’s real treasure is acoustic: whisper at the altar and the sacristan hears you by the door.

From the plaza, four streets fan out in a loose grid. Walk Calle San Antón and count the number of house-fronts whose ground-floor windows are barred with curling ironwork—twenty-three in less than 200 metres. Many of these fronts conceal bodegas: not tourist caves with piped flamenco, but working family wineries where the 2022 vintage is still sitting in glass demijohns. Knock politely (the custom is two short raps) and someone’s aunt will emerge wiping dough from her hands. Ask for una copita and you’ll be poured a young tempranillo that tastes of blackberries and rust, then charged €1.20. Twenty-five such bodegas exist inside a village of barely 2,600 souls; the maths works out at one outlet for every hundred residents, surely the highest density in Spain outside Haro.

Between holm oaks and ham legs

Leave the grid and within five minutes the tarmac turns to packed earth. This is the dehesa, the savannah-like pasture unique to Extremadura: widely spaced holm oaks, their acorns fattening black-footed pigs, and wheat stubble that glows straw-yellow from May onwards. The landscape is not dramatic—no vertiginous gorge or Instagram peak—yet it delivers a meditative kilometre-after-kilometre rhythm that makes the Cornish moor feel cluttered. Marked footpaths are few; instead, farm tracks head off at right angles. Pick any track before 10 a.m. and you’ll have hoopoes and crested larks for company, plus the distant clank of a tractor that always sounds nearer than it is.

Serious walkers can stitch together a 12-kilometre loop south-west to the abandoned railway halt at Puebla Viejo, but carry more water than you think necessary. The same altitude that cools the night also intensifies solar radiation; 21 °C in April feels like 26 °C on exposed skin. Winter hiking is underrated: crisp cobalt skies, thyme scent released by frost, and the sight of ibérico pigs rooting among fallen acorns. Just remember that daylight is scarce—dusk at 18:15—and that the village’s single cash machine often runs dry on Saturday evening, so fill pockets with coins for post-walk coffee.

How to taste without tottering

The British habit of “doing” wineries by bicycle works only if you enjoy wobbling along rutted lanes after the third tasting. Hire a car in Zafra (twelve minutes north on the A-66) or pre-book Taxi Zafra +34 924 55 12 27; a round trip to three bodegas costs about €35, including twenty minutes’ waiting time. Start at Bodega El Pajarillo on Calle Real—English-speaking owner, vacuum-sealed ham counter, and a 2019 crianza that punches way above the €6 takeaway price. Move to Bodega San Francisco for sweet pestiños at Easter, then finish at the cooperative on Avenida de Extremadura where labels are plain but the garnacha blend scooped a Decanter bronze last year.

Opening hours are theoretical. Mid-week, many cellars shut without warning if the owner drives to Badajoz for feed supplies. Bar Central doubles as the unofficial tourist office: buy a caña, slide a €2 coin into the slot machine, and ask José behind the bar who is “en casa”. He’ll phone ahead; suddenly doors open. Payment is strictly cash—no cards, no Revolut, no Monzo. Bring twenty-euro notes and a rucksack; most wines are unfiltered, so bottles travel upright in the boot, not rolling around the parcel shelf.

Calendar quirks and crowd dodging

Late June fiestas honour San Pedro with open-air verbenas that finish by 02:00—hardly Benidorm, yet accommodation within 15 km sells out three months ahead. August’s Virgen celebrations are quieter, centred on a single Saturday firework display that terrifies every dog in the province. January brings San Antón: animal blessing at 11:00 sharp, followed by oak-branch bonfires in the street and free chorizo rolls. British visitors in winter are rare enough to be adopted; expect invitations to somebody’s cousin’s matanza where you’ll be handed a glass of anisette at 09:30 and expected to stir a cauldron of migas the size of a satellite dish.

The sweet spot is late April to early June, or the whole of September. Daytime temperatures sit in the low twenties, rainfall averages twelve days a month (usually a brief shower that smells of wet thyme), and the surrounding wheat turns from green to gold in real time. October brings the grape harvest; you can stomp barefoot in a wooden lagar at one family bodega, but only if you promise to sing—badly is perfectly acceptable.

Beds, bread and bad phone signals

There is no hotel inside the village. Closest options are rural casas rurales five minutes out: Casa La Luna has two doubles from €70 including bikes, but the track is unmade and a low-slung Fiesta will scrape. Many visitors base themselves in Zafra, a small city with a castle-parador and a Monday morning market worth the detour for jamón alone. Sunday lunch in Puebla is the big meal; restaurants (really glorified front rooms) open 14:00-16:30 and close by 19:00. Order the cuchara stew of the day—lentil with morcilla in winter, chickpea with spinach in spring. Vegetarians survive on tortilla and ensalada de pimientos; vegans should self-cater.

Mobile coverage is patchy inside stone houses; Whatsapp messages ping through eventually, so don’t rely on Google Maps to locate your next bodega. Download an offline map or, radical idea, ask. The village runs on the principle that everyone knows where everyone else is at any given moment; within 24 hours they’ll know your itinerary better than you do.

When to leave without regret

Two hours buys you the church, the plaza and a glass of wine. Half a day lets you walk the dehesa, sniff oak resin and understand why Extremaduran ham costs £90 a kilo at Borough Market. Stay overnight and you’ll hear the bells strike the hour that nobody bothers to mention—six am, seven am, a soundtrack so normal to residents that they sleep through it. The place will not change your life, but it might recalibrate your sense of scale: how few people a village needs to keep a culture alive, how little money it takes to eat well, how much space Spain still has between its motorways. Come for the wine, linger for the silence, depart when the thermometer climbs past 35 °C or the first November fog banks roll in and the whole plateau smells of woodsmoke and wet granite.