Garganta la Olla

The land around Garganta la Olla has been inhabited since ancient times, as a number of Vettone hillforts in the area confirm. During the Visigoth period two monasteries of some repute stood here, San Martín de Tours and San Salvador, though both have since been lost. The settlement's earliest recorded name was Ad fauces, a Latin phrase meaning "beside the gorges," which points directly to its geography: the town sits at the junction of two ravines, the Garganta Mayor and the Garganta de San Blas.

It is likely the town took its current name from the larger of these two gorges. Downstream from the Garganta Mayor lie the remains of an older settlement called Carnaceas, a name associated with the word for slaughter, and local tradition holds that it was destroyed in fighting. Whether Carnaceas was the original Ad fauces settlement remains an open question.

The town's fortunes shifted between Moorish and Christian control before being incorporated into the Kingdom of Castile under Alfonso VIII. It was subsequently resettled by colonists from the sierras of Ávila, many of them cattle farmers of Basque or Navarrese origin, a heritage still visible in family surnames such as Bolívar, Lerga, Acedo, and Carrondo found in the town's records. Administratively, the town was grouped into the Sexmo de la Vera, a confederation of villages managing shared resources, and fell under the jurisdiction of Plasencia.

That arrangement proved contentious: when Alfonso IX granted the town to the Infantes de la Cerda in 1340, Plasencia refused to relinquish control and imposed such heavy levies on the inhabitants that the locals threatened to abandon the town entirely, eventually prompting a rebuke from King Enrique II. Later the town passed to the Marquis of Villena, Diego López Pacheco, who lost possession after backing the wrong claimant to the Castilian throne.

The parish church of San Lorenzo Mártir, built in the sixteenth century and belonging to the diocese of Plasencia, is the town's main religious building. It contains a baroque organ that was restored in 1984. Two hermitages, the Ermita del Santísimo Cristo del Humilladero and the Ermita de San Martín, also survive in the town.

Among the secular buildings, the Casa de la Inquisición is one of the most striking. Equally unusual is the Casa de las Muñecas, which served as a brothel in the sixteenth century; its façade was painted a distinctive blue at the time to set it apart from other houses on the street. There is also a Casa de mozas de fortuna, a second building connected with the same trade.

The Casa de Francisco Díaz stands out architecturally. Díaz was the master builder of the church tower and nave in 1573, and his house is considered one of the oldest in the village. Unusually, its ground, first, and second floors are framed not in adobe but in fired brick, known as ladrillo mudéjar, within the original timber structure.

The scholar Caro Baroja identified it as perhaps the finest example of a Basque baserri farmhouse outside the Basque Country, a legacy of the town's Navarrese and Basque settler heritage. Other points of interest include the Plaza Mayor, the Casa de Postas, the Casa de Pedro de Carvajal, a former hospital for the poor, and the so-called Casas Gemelas. Just outside the village, the Roman bridge known as the Puente de Cuacos crosses the river.

Beyond it, a large rocky outcrop called the Restraculo contains a natural stone slide worn smooth by generations of children; researchers have linked it to a possible nearby rock altar, classifying it as a peña resbaladera. The river also forms several natural swimming spots, including Las Pilatillas, which has a poolside bar serving food in the evening, and the Cascada del Calderón, a two-metre waterfall above a deep pool.