Village
San Juan de Gredos is a municipality of about 220 inhabitants in the comarca of El Barco de Ávila-Piedrahíta, born in 1974 from the voluntary merger of Navacepeda de Tormes, La Herguijuela and San Bartolomé de Tormes, decided upon because of the inability to provide public services separately given the decline in population. Its capital is Navacepeda de Tormes, at 1,348 metres of altitude, between the north slope of the Sierra de Gredos and the south slope of the Villafranca, watered by the río Tormes. Within its territory opens the Plataforma, the main gateway to the Sierra de Gredos, with regulated access to avoid overcrowding. The sierra can also be reached from Navacepeda by a road that follows the course of the Garganta del Barbellido, of great scenic value.
Monument
The Romanesque church of Navacepeda de Tormes is the parish church of the municipal capital, on the floor of the upper Tormes valley at 1,348 metres. Its granite fabric presides over a settlement that in 1846 gathered a little more than three hundred households.
Monument
El Pozo de las Paredes is a pool of the Barbellido river, in the district of Navacepeda de Tormes, within the Ávila-province municipality of San Juan de Gredos, very popular as a summer bathing spot. It is presided over by a single-arch bridge of rough construction — often called “Roman”, though it is actually medieval — preserved in its entirety and still passable on foot and by car, half a kilometre before the stream delivers its waters to the Tormes under the bridge of Navacepeda. In the upper area there is a recreational area with a restaurant, and from here a path sets off climbing towards Gredos, passing several springs.
Monument
The church of San Bartolomé de Tormes, in the municipality of San Juan de Gredos, was built in granite in the 16th century with Renaissance lines, visible above all in the entrance doorway and in the arches and pillars of the interior; the well-squared ashlars of its tower, different from the rest of the fabric in rubblework and rammed earth, suggest an earlier late Gothic construction on which the present church was rebuilt. Some 23 by 17 metres in size, it has a single nave divided into two bays with the choir at the foot, covered by a wooden artesonado ceiling decorated with a saetino frieze and painted motifs on the tie-beams, and holds carvings from the 16th century, a 17th-century crucified Christ and gilded Baroque altarpieces from the 18th century.
Monument
Built in the 16th century, it is the main building of La Herguijuela, a settlement documented since 1592, when a census counted around seventy inhabitants; it came to number close to three hundred in the early 20th century. It is the local parish church, under the patronage of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles; as Madoz described it in the mid-19th century, its curacy was one of entrada and of presentation by the justice, the council and the villagers, who then numbered 186 inhabitants. The population kept declining with rural exodus down to about 80 residents in 2008. In 1974 La Herguijuela merged with Navacepeda de Tormes and San Bartolomé de Tormes to form the present-day municipality of San Juan de Gredos.
Monument
It was built in 1905 on the road that leaves La Herguijuela towards San Martín de la Vega del Alberche, and it is still the obligatory crossing between the Tormes valley and the head of the Alberche over the sierra de Villafranca.
Monument
The settlement preserves five stone fountains with names of their own: the basin of the plaza Mayor, El Chorrillo, the Fuente de Abajo, La Charquilla and El Cañuelo, a supply network indispensable at 1,602 metres of altitude.
Nature
It rises at the spot of Prado-Puerto, above 2,000 metres, and comes down fourteen kilometres over a bed of granite, sand and enormous blocks, draining some fifty square kilometres of the northern side of Gredos.
Nature
El Pozo de las Paredes is a pool located in Navacepeda de Tormes, within the municipality of San Juan de Gredos, and the most popular bathing spot of the upper Tormes valley in summer. It is presided over by a medieval bridge that survives whole and is passable on foot and by car, and which local tradition calls “Roman” although it is not. It lies on a very picturesque stretch of the Barbellido riverbed, which a few metres further down joins the Tormes. In the upper part there is a picnic area and a restaurant, and from El Pozo de las Paredes itself a path sets off which, passing several springs, allows one to climb towards Gredos.
Nature
The settlement sits on the southern side of the sierra de Villafranca and is among the highest villages in the province. It receives some 731 millimetres of rain a year and its temperate climate with dry summers marks the pastures.
Curiosity
The church holds a bear's paw that carbon fourteen dates to between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Tradition says a reaper cut it from the beast that was attacking him and offered it to the church in thanks.
Activity
On 24 August the settlement holds three days of festivities organised by a committee that rotates each year among the residents, with games, card tournaments and a communal meal in the square paid for with raffles and contributions.
Historical milestone
Decree 3204/1974 voluntarily united Navacepeda de Tormes, La Herguijuela and San Bartolomé de Tormes: the three town councils could no longer sustain their services separately. The seat remained at Navacepeda.
Historical milestone
Part of the film by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, released in 1955, was shot in La Herguijuela, then an independent municipality of fewer than three hundred inhabitants on the southern slope of the Villafranca range.
Food and drink
The valley's economy is still based on cattle and on three high-altitude crops that hold out above 1,300 metres: the potato, the apple and the bean, the last protected by the comarca's geographical indication.