Stone and stucco beauty in Spain's Sierra de Gata mountains
Robledillo de Gata
This will be a shorter post than this destination deserves due only to the brevity of my visit. It was the first day of a press trip to Extremadura and we were running a bit late on our drive from Madrid to the beautiful little town of Robledillo de Gata, tucked away in the very northern part of Extremadura near the border with the Castile and León region.
Looking at the time stamps on my photos now, I can see that I made my first photograph of this town at 2:37, and my last at 3:19. Forty-two minutes is not long to get to know a place and yet… I was enchanted by this very different Spanish village with a population of less than 200.
This is that first frame I mentioned — frame #1, taken at 2:37:08. It is the Ermita del Humilladero, a small chapel located at the entrance to the town. We left our vehicle here and took a short stroll through the narrow streets, surrounded by unique architecture that reflected the materials of the region. The stone and stonework here is different than I have seen in other parts of Spain. Small, flat stones are stacked, layer upon layer and chinked with much smaller stones, without a great deal of decoration or manipulation. The result is a warm, hand-crafted vernacular architecture that I would have been happy to explore and photograph for days.
Robledillo de Gata has found a place on my growing list of Spanish towns I need to re-visit. It’s a small town, but there is so much to explore. It is my favorite kind of built environment where the buildings seem to be of the earth, almost naturally grown or formed. The unique stone gives a color and texture to the town that I have not seen anywhere else. Yet, anyway.
