San Martín de Trevejo

The town's original name was San Martín de los Vinos; after a royal charter in 1230 it became Trevejo. It served for centuries as the capital of the Corregimiento de Jálama and as the seat of a commander of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. The area was fought over repeatedly during the medieval Leonese campaigns, and it was the later repopulation of these lands, carried out by settlers from the kingdoms of León and Galicia, that is thought to have given rise to a fala, a rare local language still spoken today in San Martín and the two neighbouring villages.

In 2019 the town joined the association of Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España.

The parish church of San Martín de Tours has three naves and holds three panels by the Extremaduran painter Luis de Morales, known as "el Divino." The bell tower on the main square carries an imperial coat of arms. The convent of San Miguel was founded, by tradition, on the recommendation of St Francis of Assisi, and its current building was authorised by Pope Nicholas II in 1454. The porticoed Plaza Mayor has a central fountain.

Scattered through the old town are several manor houses, including the Casa del Comendador and the Casa de los Ojesto. Out in the surrounding land, rock-cut wine vats, old ice stores, and shepherds' stone huts are still visible. A 12th-century oil mill and adjacent winepress once formed an Oil and Wine Museum, but it is currently closed.

San Martín de Trevejo lies in the Sierra de Gata, close to the Portuguese border, and has its own language, a fala, called mañegu here and still spoken in the village and two neighbours. Streams run through its cobbled streets all year, and the water is used for irrigation where it leaves the village. The mañega houses rise three storeys in stone, adobe and timber, with a ground floor where the pig was fattened for the matanza.

Carved beams with faces, the tozones con cara, hold up many jutting upper floors. The porticoed Plaza Mayor has a round stone basin dated 1888 and a free-standing granite bell tower bearing the arms of Charles V. The three-naved church of San Martín de Tours keeps three sixteenth-century panels by the painter Luis de Morales, "el Divino", and the convent of San Miguel is now a guesthouse.

San Martín de Trevejo joined Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España in 2019. The label is awarded by a private association, not the state: a village applies and is audited against around 40 criteria, from how its historic buildings are conserved to the upkeep of its streets, and members are reviewed and can lose it. San Martín de Trevejo is one of 9 members in Extremadura, out of 126 in Spain. See all heritage towns in Extremadura.