In Gredos mountains, Pedro Bernardo is located in the middle of a wonderful landscape. This town keeps the rural flavour of the tipical mountains villages.

The forest arround are tupids with elms, pines, chestnut trees and hazzelnut trees. The waterfalls and rivers becomes the town a paradise of nature.

History

The origins of Pedro Bernardo are still not clear; the original name of the village is suppossed to be Navalasolana, and there´s a popular local legend that talks about the leaders of two groups of shepherds, Pedro Fernández and Bernardo Manso, both from Ávila (the first one) and from León, north-western Spain (the socind one). The started to fight to get the control of the village, and finaly, the feudal lord of the council, Sir Beltrán de la Cueva, Duke of Albulquerque and Count of Ledesma, decided to change the name of Navalasolana to Pedro & Bernardo, to make peace and stop the struggles between the two bands.

But in fact, it´s impossible to be true. The change of the name was supposed to be in the 15th century, but there are documents from the 12th and 13th century that reflects the name of "Pero Bernaldo", the actual name, but writtwn in the old castilean language. For example, the village is named several times in the medieval codex "Libro de la montería de Alfonso XI" (something like the hunting diary of King Alfonso XI), where the castilean king used to hunt bears and wolves. Later on, in the 17th century, the Church of St. Peter Ad-Vinculae started to be builded. In the same century, Pedro Bernardo got the independence from the feudal territory of the Alburquerque dinasty, the council of Mombeltrán, were the castle was located. To remember the independence of Pedro Bernardo from the feudal lands, the "Rollo" a stone column decorated with dragon heads was situated in the place, now recognised as a town, and meant the authority of the town to execute it´s own justice and law.

In the 18th century, the protoindustrialization of Pedro Bernardo brought a domestic system industry of manufactures, such as wool fabrics and wooden spoons that people in town used to make with juniper wood. That´s the reason why today, Pedro Bernardo´s cityzens are known as "cuchareros" (people who produces spoons). The industry in later years started to produce wool rounded and conic hats, and blankets to protect shepherds from the inhospit and wet winters of the region.

In 1755, an earthquake susrprised the "cuchareros" and almost 90 years later, Pedro Bernardo suffered a flood when in a stormy night the river that crosses the village growed and destroyed some houses.

The 19th was not many different, and the production of wool fabrics, hats and blankets continued. This rural area was really undevelopped in comparison with Europe in general: no roads, no electric light or water in houses, even though there was easy to take water due to the richness of water in this area in the middle of Castile.

In the 20th century, the most spectacular happening in Pedro Bernardo was the Civil War. In 1936, the "Doval section" of the General Franco´s insurgence, entered in the town to get the control of the village. There was a big fight in the mountain of La Abantera. but the worse part of the story happened later, in the post-war period. The mountains of this part of central Spain were the perfect place for the republicans to be hidden, and try to reorganice themselves. The "maquis", I mean, the comunists and republicans, were hidden in the surroundings of Pedro Bernardo for many years (until the 50`s), and they had to steal and extorsion to be able to survive. The oublied agricultors and farmers to kill cattle for them, such as goats, sheep or chickens, in a risky politic situation in Spain. If the police (the Guardia Civil) discovered somebody helping the ´maquis`by suministrating food or anything, they could be sent to prison or even executed. But the republicans continued extorsioning, kidnapping and stealing poor farmers to survive, even killing theyr families if they did´nt help the maquis.

It was a difficcult time, but finally everithing stopped. 

Itñs time to talk about the most famous son of this small town: Proffessor Arturo Duperior, who was born in Pedro Bernardo in 1898 and who could have won the Nobel Price after his important discoverings in Phisics. He emigrated to England to be able to study the cosmic rays, and he could do it in the Imperial College of London, also in Manchester and finally in many labs around the world. This eminence of phisics came back to Pedro Bernardo in the 50´s, and then received several tributes of his home village.

In the 80´s, concretely in 1985, our village suffered a big fire that distroyed the 98% of the forest area, over 6000 hectareas of pinetrees and other kinds of vegetation. A man died trying to stop the fire and the local economy was seriously damaged. The 40 per cent of the population migrated, because almost all families in town lived from the wood industry. In 1990 another disaster, a new flood, this time in the "Garganta de la Eliza" distroyed the natural environement and another guy lost his life. The new 21th century had also another natural disaster; another huge fire that destroyed again the forests of the surroundins of the village, where another man died again.

It affected the tourism in the village, buet fortunately now the surrundinsg are slowly getting green again.

Since the fire, many popular associations has born to try to do something for the future of our beautifull village. The Foro de Pedro Bernardo (Forum of PB), or the PLataforma por el futuro de Pedro Bernardo are only two of those associations that are fighting to achieve something better for our village.