A walled hilltop town in Extremadura, birthplace of conquistadors, with one of Spain’s grandest plazas, a Moorish castle and a calm that bigger cities lost long ago.
Places to Discover
Towns, villages, viewpoints and corners worth the detour — the kind of places most visitors drive past. Each guide covers what to see, where to eat, and where to stay, written for travellers who’d rather find the real thing than the crowded one. Browse them all below.
The Roman capital of Extremadura, where a 2,000-year-old theatre still stages plays and a UNESCO ensemble of amphitheatre, temple and aqueduct sits inside a calm, walkable modern city.
A complete walled medieval old town of palaces, towers and stork nests in western Spain. UNESCO-listed, known to Game of Thrones fans, yet still calm and uncrowded.
A medieval village wrapped around one of Spain’s great monasteries, set deep in the uncrowded Villuercas mountains of eastern Extremadura.
The best-preserved old town in the Jerte Valley, wrapped in a million cherry trees. A quiet, walkable base for orchards, gorges and mountain villages in northern Extremadura.
A timber-and-stone village in La Vera, beside the monastery where Emperor Charles V chose to die. Arcaded plazas, paprika country and a deep-history quarter, almost free of crowds.
A castle town deep in La Vera, where Charles V waited out his last months. Sleep in the Parador, swim the Garganta Jaranda, and watch fire light the streets in December.
Arcos de la Frontera crowns a sandstone cliff above the Guadalete, the gateway to Andalucía’s white villages. Climb its Moorish lanes to Plaza del Cabildo for sweeping, uncrowded views.
A white mountain village inside the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, Spain’s rainiest corner. Come for big limestone hikes, griffon vultures and payoyo cheese — and cool, quiet evenings at 800 metres.
A white village wrapped round a crag under a Moorish castle tower, high above a turquoise reservoir — the gateway to the Sierra de Grazalema and its gorge walks.
A white town in the Sierra de Cádiz, crowned by a Moorish castle and a huge church. It marks the start of the Vía Verde greenway and the White Villages Trail.
A white village in Cádiz where whitewashed houses sit under huge rock overhangs. Setenil’s cave streets, Moorish tower and cave-cool tapas bars reward a slow, uncrowded visit.
The largest of Andalucía’s white villages, Ubrique is Spain’s leather-craft capital — a working mountain town below sheer limestone cliffs, with Roman ruins and a steep, whitewashed old town.
The dramatic gorge town of the Sierra de Ronda, split by a 100-metre chasm and joined by the Puente Nuevo. Busy by day, quietly spectacular at dawn and dusk.
Andalucía’s overlooked provincial capital: a giant Renaissance cathedral, the largest Arab baths in Spain, and a castle mirador above endless olive groves.
A small, golden-stone Renaissance town in Jaén’s olive country — UNESCO-listed with Úbeda, but calmer, walkable and easy to fall for.
A UNESCO Renaissance city of golden palaces and calm squares in Jaén’s sea of olive groves — the grander half of the Úbeda–Baeza pair, and a fine base for the Sierra de Cazorla.
A whitewashed town under a Moorish castle in Jaén, Cazorla is the quiet gateway to Spain’s largest natural park — mountains, gorges and the source of the Guadalquivir.
A line of twelve windmills and a medieval castle crown the ridge above Consuegra, in Toledo province — the postcard of La Mancha, best seen at dawn or dusk once the coaches have gone.
Ten white windmills crown the hill above Campo de Criptana, in Ciudad Real — the giants of Don Quixote, rising straight from a whitewashed old town rather than a bare ridge.
The Toledo village Cervantes chose as Dulcinea’s home: a calm white town of tiled Quixote quotes, a vast Gothic church and small museums, best seen slowly and overnight.
