Ermita de Nuestra Señora de las Cruces
Tucked into a gentle hillside barely two kilometres from Don Benito's centre, the whitewashed Ermita de Nuestra Señora de las Cruces is the kind of quietly sacred place that locals have been visiting for centuries and tourists almost never find. The surrounding scrubland is threaded with old pilgrimage paths still marked by stone crosses.
History written in whitewash
The hermitage dates to the 17th century and was built on the site of an older rural chapel. Its interior is simple to the point of austerity — terracotta floor tiles, a painted wooden image of the Virgin and oil lamps — which makes the devotional atmosphere feel entirely genuine rather than staged.
Every year in late April or early May the town holds a romería (pilgrimage) to the ermita, with families walking the old paths carrying flowers and food for an outdoor lunch. If your dates align, it's one of the most authentic folk-religious experiences in the region.
The landscape around it
The scrub oak and rosemary heath surrounding the chapel is typical Extremaduran monte bajo, and in spring it blooms with rockroses (jaras) whose white petals last only a single day — an ephemeral beauty that rewards early-morning visitors.
From the low rise behind the ermita you get an unobstructed view across the Vegas Altas plain: a patchwork of olive groves, cereal fields and the distant glint of the Guadiana — a panorama that has changed very little in 300 years.
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