Rozas de Puerto Real

The tarmac runs out at 882 metres, the last chestnut tree leans over the road like a gatekeeper, and suddenly the mobile signal disappears. That’s Rozas de Puerto Real: a scatter of stone houses, a single church bell and more oaks than people. It isn’t quaint, it isn’t pretty-pretty, yet walkers who make the 90-kilometre dash west from Madrid airport keep coming back for the silence that drops over the valley at sunset.

A village that forgot to grow

Rozas was never meant for sightseeing. The houses sit where the livestock left space—low, whitewashed cubes with granite lintels, some restored by weekenders from the capital, others still sharing a wall with the family cow. There is no plaza mayor, no arcaded square, just a fork in the road: left for the church, right for the bar. The Asunción parish church is the only building that tries to stand tall; its brick belfry looks slightly surprised to find itself above the treeline. Inside, the altarpiece is plain, the air smells of candle wax and stone, and the pews are rarely more than a quarter full except at Sunday noon Mass.

Architecture buffs may leave underwhelmed; the attraction is the wrapper rather than the gift. Walk fifty paces past the last house and you are in dehesa—cork oak and holm oak spaced wide enough for sheep to graze, their trunks blackened by decades of pig-rub. The ground is springy with mast, acorns crunch like cornflakes, and every so often a red kite tilts overhead, checking for lunch.

Chestnut loops and pig tracks

Maps call the paths “caminos rurales”, locals call them “where I go to find mushrooms”. Either way, they are unsigned, ungroomed and perfect if you remember the old Scout rule: tell someone where you’re going. The easiest circuit, known in village WhatsApp groups as “Castaños & Robledales”, leaves from the cemetery gate, climbs 250 m through sweet-chestnut coppice, then levels out along a ridge that gives a clear-day view west to the Gredos snow-line. The whole loop is 17 km; half that if you cut back along the Arroyo de los Lagartos, a usually dry stream bed where wild boar leave hoofprints the size of two-pound coins.

Summer walkers should start early: at 875 m the sun bites even at nine o’clock, and shade is limited to whichever side of the valley the slope offers. Autumn is kinder—ochres and rusts creep across the canopy, and locals in orange vests appear with wicker baskets looking for níscalos (saffron milk-caps). Winter is spectacular but serious: night frosts are routine, snow can block the M-511 for half a day, and the bar stove becomes the social hub. Spring brings the return of nightingales and the first outdoor tables, though the wind can still knife through a fleece at 6 p.m.

What lands on the table

Food is farm-household cooking rather than restaurant cuisine. The weekend-only bar—look for the hand-painted “Cocido los Sábados” sign—does a three-course set for €14 that starts with chickpea stew thick enough to stand a spoon in. Vegetarians can ask for “cocido sin morro”; you will still get the chorizo flavour because everything swims in the same pot. The house red comes from Cebreros, the local Garnacha that London wine merchants now flog for £18 under the label “Comando G Rozas de Puerto Real”; here it costs €3.50 a glass and tastes better for the altitude.

There is no shop, so the single self-catering apartment, El Patio de Rozas, books out months ahead with Madrid families who pack cool boxes on the way out of town. If you snare a night, expect stone floors, underfloor heating and a small pool that stares straight at the oak slope—shared with the owners’ Labrador, who considers all chorizo fair game.

When the clouds roll in

Rozas has one undeniable downside: if the weather turns, the itinerary shrinks to the bar and back. Cobbled lanes become rivulets, the red clay sticks to boots like glue, and the panoramic view is replaced by a white wall 20 m away. Check the forecast the evening before; if amber rain warnings appear, divert to San Martín de Valdeiglesias 25 km north where the castle museum at least has a roof.

Crowds are rarely a problem—population 500, plus however many rented cars are parked outside El Patio—but Spanish public holidays create a mini-surge. Easter weekend and the first May bank holiday see every apartment in the Sierra Oeste booked by families fleeing the capital’s heat island. Mid-week outside school holidays you may have the ridge to yourself; August weekends you will share the path with mountain-bike kids and their labradors.

Getting there, getting out

The drive from Barajas Terminal 1 is straightforward: A-5 west to Navalcarnero, then the M-510 and M-511. The final 20 km tighten into switchbacks, but the asphalt is smooth and barriers new—still, allow 1 h 45 total; the last stretch is no place for hurry. Car hire is essential: the weekday bus from Madrid drops at Robledo de Chavela 15 km away, and taxis refuse to climb the hill for less than €40.

Fill the tank before you leave the motorway; Rozas has no petrol station, no cash machine and only intermittent card reception in the bar. Bring euros and a paper map—Google’s offline tile for the valley expires exactly when you discover the trail has forked into three pig tracks.

Leave time for the slow drive down at sunset; the west-facing slope turns every oak into a black paper-cut while the sky goes from tangerine to bruise-purple in minutes. It is the sort of dusk photographers call “golden hour” but here feels more like a signal: the Sierra has clocked off, the cows are bedding down, and the village’s one streetlamp flickers on. You could race back to Madrid for a late flight, yet most visitors find themselves indicating left instead of right, back towards the apartment, the unlit porch and the absolute dark that city skies forgot existed.