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Sierra de Francia

Salamanca, Spain · Spain

Five villages listed as historic ensembles in a range of chestnut woods, inside the Las Batuecas natural park. In 1940 La Alberca became the first rural village in Spain to receive that protection, and since then the region has kept something lost elsewhere: timber-framed houses, balconies jutting over the street and terraced farming that is still the landscape. In Mogarraz, four hundred portraits hang on the façades: they are the residents who left.

3 days2 nights96 km9 stopsBest season: Autumn, for the chestnuts, when the range turns gold and brown. Spring works too. From mid-October it starts getting properly cold, especially up high.

Day 1La Alberca, the summit and the closed valley Day 2The portraits and the water path Day 3Three walled towns

Day 1 · La Alberca, the summit and the closed valley

Peña de Francia and Las Batuecas · 52 km

Cruccone — CC BY 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

La Alberca

history

In 1940 it became the first rural village in Spain listed as a historic ensemble, and you see why on reaching the main square: timber-framed houses with upper floors jutting over the street, exactly as they were built in the 16th century. In the church stands the verraco, a Celtic stone boar far older than the village.

Tip

The tradition of the San Antón pig is still alive here: a pig released into the streets on 13 June, fed by the neighbours and raffled on 17 January. If you run into it, don't be surprised.

25 min to the next stop · 17 km

Rodelar — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

La Peña de Francia

viewpoints

The highest point in the region, above seventeen hundred metres, with a 15th-century Dominican sanctuary at the summit. From the top you see Mogarraz, Sequeros, Miranda, San Martín and La Alberca all at once, and on clear days the view reaches the Gredos range and Portugal.

Tip

It is cold and windy up there even in summer: take a layer even if it is hot below. And the road up has a great many tight bends.

40 min to the next stop · 31 km

Jesusccastillo — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Las Batuecas valley

nature

A closed valley reached down the Portillo pass, through a winding defile, with a Carmelite monastery founded in 1599 at the bottom. For centuries it was a byword for absolute isolation: it was said people lived here who did not know the rest of the world existed.

Tip

The Portillo viewpoint on the way down is one of the best in the range and almost nobody stops. In the valley there are shelters with rock paintings, though most cannot be visited.

Day 2 · The portraits and the water path

Mogarraz and Monforte de la Sierra · 18 km

Sotos — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Mogarraz

culture

Almost four hundred portraits painted on metal sheets hang on the village façades. They are the residents who in 1967 had their photograph taken to renew their identity cards; half a century later the painter Florencio Maíllo recovered those photos and painted each one on the house where they lived.

Tip

Look at the faces: many are of people who emigrated and never came back. The village lost a good part of its residents in the sixties, and those faces are, literally, the ones who are missing.

Caseñosanchez — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

The Camino del Agua

nature

A circular path of about nine kilometres that leaves Mogarraz and passes through Monforte de la Sierra, winding through vegetable plots and chestnut groves and following the irrigation channels. Along the way there are works of art set into the landscape.

Tip

Allow about three hours: it climbs and drops into the valley, but it is an easy path and can be done with children who like walking. It leaves Mogarraz on the La Alberca road, about two hundred and fifty metres out, where the GR-10 turns off.

5 min to the next stop · 3 km

Sotos — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Monforte de la Sierra

heritage

The village the Camino del Agua passes through and one of the smallest villages in the range, with barely fifty inhabitants. Steep streets, wooden balconies and not a single shop: it is as close to silence as you can get in the region.

Tip

If you have walked the path, there is no bar reliably open here. Carry water and eat beforehand in Mogarraz.

Day 3 · Three walled towns

San Martín, Sequeros and Miranda del Castañar · 26 km

Luis Rogelio HM — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

San Martín del Castañar

history

A 15th-century castle whose former courtyard is now the village bullring, one of the oldest in Spain, and whose walls enclose the cemetery. In the atrium of the church of San Martín de Tours stands a Roman funerary stele reused as building material.

Tip

The Forest of Mirrors starts here, nine kilometres to Sequeros and Las Casas del Conde with artworks installed among the trees.

10 min to the next stop · 6 km

Dario — CC BY-SA 1.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Sequeros

heritage

The fifth of the range's listed historic villages and the least visited. Its name is said to come from the chestnut drying houses, which for centuries were the livelihood of the whole region before the potato arrived.

Tip

From the Robledo chapel on the outskirts there is a view of the entire range. A ten-minute walk that almost nobody takes.

15 min to the next stop · 11 km

Luis Rogelio HM — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Miranda del Castañar

history

A walled town with four gates and a long main street running end to end, from the castle, whose former courtyard is now the bullring. It survives whole because it never grew: it is still the size it was in the 15th century.

Tip

The Camino de los Prodigios, a circular path of about eleven kilometres with works of art among the trees, leaves from here towards Villanueva del Conde.

This getaway is in the app, day by day, with every stop on the map, the drives between them and where to sleep, and the option to save it for when there is no signal.

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