Granadilla, the Abandoned Village
Flooded out in the 1960s when the Franco regime built the Gabriel y Galán reservoir, Granadilla was forcibly evacuated and left to crumble — until a government restoration project began stabilising its medieval walls, castle and church in the 1980s. Today it stands as a perfectly atmospheric ghost town surrounded by water on three sides, utterly unknown to most visitors and completely free to expl
Walking the Empty Streets
A narrow causeway connects Granadilla to the mainland, and crossing it already feels like entering another world. Inside the 15th-century walls, the streets are intact but roofless houses stand open to the sky, their doorways framing views of the reservoir beyond. The Moorish castle keep has been stabilised and can be climbed for views over the water and the surrounding sierra.
The church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios still has its tower and nave walls standing, and the old cemetery outside the walls adds a quietly melancholy note. The restoration project has been ongoing for decades but progress is slow — the village is caught in a permanent state of beautiful, photogenic incompleteness.
Getting There & Combining with the Sierra de Gata
Granadilla is in the far north of Extremadura, about 70 km from Plasencia near the town of Carcaboso, and is almost completely off the tourist trail. The surrounding landscape — the Sierra de Gata and the Las Hurdes valleys — is some of the wildest and least-visited terrain in Spain, a region of chestnut forests, stone-built villages and honey-coloured rivers.
Combine a visit to Granadilla with a drive through Las Hurdes, the isolated mountain comarca that Luis Buñuel filmed in his savage 1933 documentary 'Land Without Bread'. The villages of Pinofranqueado, Nuñomoral and La Huetre are still remote and authentic, with small bars serving wild boar stew and local cherry liqueur.
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