Las Hurdes Mountains

Address: Las Hurdes, Extremadura, Spain - region covering municipalities including Nuñomoral and Pinofranqueado

Admission: Free to visit region; individual museums/sites may charge

Las Hurdes is a mountainous comarca in northern Extremadura, Spain, noted for its traditional villages and history of isolation within the Iberian interior. The area is characterised by steep valleys and slate-built rural settlements.

Travelers encounter dispersed villages with vernacular slate architecture, narrow rural roads and trails used for hiking and rural tourism. The landscape supports chestnut and oak woodlands and provides opportunities for walking and exploring traditional agricultural practices.

Las Hurdes was long regarded as a remote and economically disadvantaged area, a condition documented by writers and filmmakers in the early 20th century. In recent decades the comarca has developed rural tourism and initiatives to preserve local culture and architecture.

The comarca lies in the north of the province of Cáceres in Extremadura, Spain, set in a rugged upland zone with small villages linked by narrow roads and tracks.

• Landscape: The region is mountainous and sparsely populated, with traditional slate-built villages and a landscape shaped by steep valleys and chestnut and oak woodlands.
• Historical note: Historically documented for poverty and isolation in early 20th-century accounts and films, the area has been the subject of social and cultural study.

What to See#

• Main villages: Pinofranqueado and Casares de las Hurdes are two of the larger historic villages that serve as local centres within the comarca.
• Trails and hamlets: Rural pathways and mountain tracks connect scattered hamlets characterized by traditional slate architecture and terraced fields.

Drive from Plasencia (approximately 1-1.5 hours) via EX-204 and regional roads into the Hurdes valley. Buses serve major towns like Pinofranqueado but private transport makes exploring small hamlets easier.

• Hire a local guide in the village of Caminomorisco to hear first-hand tales of emigration and the 20th-century dramas that reshaped the area.
• Visit one of the traditional stone 'aljibes' (communal cisterns) and taste local goat cheeses in a village shop.
• Summer festivals (ferias) still follow old rhythms - check municipal calendars for dates.