Navalagamella

The A-5 motorway spits you out at kilometre 42. From there the road climbs fast enough to make your ears pop; within ten minutes Madrid’s heat-haze is gone and the temperature drops five degrees. Navalagamella sits at 753 m, high enough for the air to smell of thyme rather than diesel, yet only 45 km from the capital. On a clear morning you can still see the Cuatro Torres poking above the western skyline like upturned staples.

Stone, brick and the sound of nothing much

The centre is small enough to cross in four minutes, but worth slowing down for. Houses are built from local granite and brick the colour of burnt toast; a few still carry 18th-century coats of arms worn smooth by rain. The Plaza de la Constitución isn’t photogenic in the postcard sense – no arcades, no café terraces spilling into the road – yet it works as a social barometer. By 11 a.m. the benches are occupied by men in flat caps arguing over yesterday’s Quiniela; by 1 p.m. the queue outside the bakery reaches the chemist’s door. If you want to feel the place pulse, stand here for ten minutes and listen: church bells, scooter, two dogs, silence.

San Bartolomé church keeps the same unhurried rhythm. The 16th-century tower looks plain until you notice the brickwork changes course halfway up, evidence of a 17th-century rebuild paid for by locals who had just discovered merino wool. Inside, a single Baroque retablo glitters in the gloom; the sacristan will open up if you ask in the baker’s, and he’ll point out where the original Mudéjar ceiling was plastered over, no labels, no audio guide. Donation box by the door; €2 covers the electricity for the lights.

Walks that punish the unprepared

Navalagamella’s real size lies outside the ring road. North of the village the dehesa – an open oak savannah – starts immediately. Paths are marked with green-and-white waymarks, but mobile coverage vanishes after the first cattle grid. A 40-minute circuit loops through the dehesa and back to the sports ground; in May the ground is carpeted with white chamomile and the air rattles with bee-eaters. Serious walkers should aim for Cerro de San Pedro, 2.5 km south-east and 200 m higher. The path is a farm track: no shade, no bins, no mercy. Allow an hour up, 35 minutes down, and carry more water than you think sensible; even in October the sun reflects off the granite dust.

Cyclists share the same tracks. The gradient is gentle until it isn’t – a 12 % ramp just after the abandoned stone quarry sorts the weekenders from the aficionados. Mountain bikes can be hired at BiciMonte on the main road (€25 half-day, €40 full day; cash only), but ring ahead: if the owner is harvesting olives the shop stays shut.

Food that arrives in casseroles, not on slate

There are no tasting menus here. Lunch means cocido madrileño on Thursdays, roast lamb on Sundays, and whatever the owner’s mother froze last week the rest of the time. Mesón de la Villa serves lamb that falls off the bone at the touch of a spoon, with chips actually cut from potatoes; a three-course menú del día costs €14 including a half-bottle of house wine strong enough to stun a mule. Vegetarians get a break at Maddnes Town, a hipsterish café that opened during the pandemic and survived by accident: beetroot hummus toast, decent flat white, carrot cake that doesn’t taste of fridge – prices Londoners would call reasonable, locals call scandalous (toast €6.50, coffee €2.20). Buy olive oil from the cooperative on Calle Real; the picual variety is pressed 6 km down the road and burns the throat in the good way.

When the village throws a party – and when to hide

Fiestas are timed to agricultural calendars, not tourist ones. San Blas in early February blesses throats and distributes free rosquillas (dense doughnuts); nights drop to –3 °C, so the action lasts exactly as long as the free wine. San Bartolomé at the end of August is bigger: brass bands, foam party in the square, paella for 800 cooked in a pan two metres wide. Book accommodation early or you’ll sleep in the car. Semana Santa is low-key – one nazareno brotherhood, no incense, no pointy hoods – but the Thursday procession starts at 10 p.m. and finishes after 1 a.m.; bring a jacket because the wind off the sierra is sharp.

Getting here without the car – and why you might wish you hadn’t

Bus 551 leaves Madrid’s Príncipe Pío station at 08:15 and 15:30 weekdays, 08:15 and 17:30 Saturdays, nothing on Sundays. Journey time is 55 minutes if the driver doesn’t stop for cigarettes; single fare €4.20. The return timetable punishes dawdlers – last departure 19:10 – so a day trip gives you six hours, enough for the church, the dehesa and lunch, but not the hill walk. Drivers take the A-5 to exit 47, then the M-510; petrol stations are scarce once you leave the motorway, so fill up before you turn off. Parking on the main street is free for two hours; after that you’ll need a resident’s permit or a blind eye from the policeman who eats doughnuts in the Plaza.

Winter fog, summer furnace – pick your poison

Altitude moderates extremes, but only slightly. July and August nudge 35 °C by 3 p.m.; stone walls radiate heat until midnight. Mornings are deliciously cool – 7 a.m. starts are standard for runners and mushroom hunters. January brings frost that lasts all day in the shade; paths turn to glass and the dehesa looks like a black-and-white photograph. Snow is rare but not impossible – February 2021 dropped 18 cm and cut the village off for 36 hours. April and late September are the sweet spots: 20 °C, wildflowers or autumn crocus, bars still serving outside.

The honesty clause

Navalagamella will not change your life. There are no boutique hotels, no craft gin distilleries, no viewpoints that make you weep. What it offers is a lesson in scale: a place small enough to hear the baker scrape his oven, large enough to remind you that Madrid’s gravitational pull isn’t irresistible. Come for a morning and you’ll leave after lunch; come for a weekend and you might find yourself timing your day by church bells instead of phone alerts. Either way, the road back down to the motorway always feels faster than the road up.