Lerma

The first glimpse comes from the motorway: a honey-coloured ridge rising out of the cereal plain, walls and towers arranged with theatrical precision against a 360-degree sky. Pull off the A-1, climb the narrow access road, and the scale becomes clearer—this is no accidental hill-town but a single, audacious 17th-century set piece. In the space of a decade Felipe III’s favourite, the Duke of Lerma, converted his modest birthplace into a palace-city meant to outshine Madrid itself. The court never quite moved here, yet the architecture remains: a perfect, largely tourist-free Baroque bubble hovering 849 m above sea level.

A Plaza Big Enough for Bulls and Ball Games

Step under the Arco de la Cárcel and the cobbled lane tips upwards towards Spain’s second-largest main square. At 7,000 m² the Plaza Mayor was designed for royal receptions, bullfights and even mock naval battles when flooded. Today its three-storey arcades shelter butchers, chemists and cafés where village men still gather for the morning conac. British visitors tend to arrive, photograph the symmetry, then leave too soon; stay until the lamps click on at dusk and you’ll see the space working as an outdoor living-room. Wednesday complicates things—market stalls halve the available stone, so come Tuesday or Thursday if you want uninterrupted views of the Duke’s palace façade.

The palace itself is now a Parador. You don’t need to sleep there to wander the miradores: cannon-lined terraces that survey the Arlanza valley and the grain belt stretching to Burgos forty minutes away. A coffee on the terrace costs €2.80, cheaper than most service stations and served with the same panorama that once reminded courtiers how small they were.

Six Convents and a Secret Passageway

Lerma’s skyline is a ledger of ducal piety—six convents founded in as many years. Three remain cloistered; their only contact with the street is a lazy-Susan wooden hatch dispensing sweets. Bring a €5 note to Convento de la Ascensión and the hatch spins back with walnut-sized chocolate truffles still bearing the fingerprints of the enclosed nuns. The Colegiata de San Pedro, by contrast, is open and quietly spectacular: a Latin-cross church paid for by the Duke to advertise his closeness to Rome. Inside, an 18th-century organ sprouts gilded pipes like an oversized household radiator; the sacristy hides a small gallery of Zurbarán school canvases that would be marquee pieces in a British regional museum yet here sit in semi-darkness, free to view.

Linking palace to prayer is the Paseo de los Cañones, an elevated arched corridor that allowed the Duke’s family to reach Mass without rubbing shoulders with townsfolk. Walk it late afternoon and the wind, funnelled up from the river gorge, tastes of thyme and dry earth. Below, the plain ripples with wind-patterns that resemble a brown, inverted sea.

Roast Lamb and Bean Broth

Castilian cooking is built for the altitude. Lunch begins around 14:30 with lechazo—milk-fed lamb roasted in oak-fired brick ovens until the skin forms a crisp parchment. A half-ración (€18) feeds two, arrives on a plain clay dish and tastes milder than Welsh salt-marsh lamb. Vegetarians survive on judiones, butter beans the size of conkers stewed with saffron and, if you insist, without the customary chorizo. Local Arlanza reds are lighter than neighbouring Ribera del Duero, meaning you can taste the fruit before the alcohol clocks you at 14%. Expect to pay £9–12 a bottle on a restaurant list, roughly half Rioja pricing.

Evening eating starts late; the paseo doesn’t begin until 21:30 and tables fill only after that. Book the Parador’s comedor by 18:00 or linger in the Plaza Mayor until 20:30 when the mesones light their coals. If you baulk at Spanish timings, lunch is the easier meal—kitchens stay open until 16:00 and daylight makes the steep walk back to the car less treacherous.

Walking Off the Calories

The town itself is compact—three hours of wandering covers the walls, the miradores and the convents—but the surroundings reward a longer stride. A signed 7 km loop descends through wheat terraces to the Arlanza river, where poplars give shade and the temperature drops five degrees. For something wilder, drive ten minutes to the Sabinar de Castrillo, one of Europe’s last surviving juniper forests. The 3 km circular boardwalk feels more like northern Greece than central Spain; in May the undergrowth glows with crimson peonies and the air smells of pine and pepper.

Summer hikers should carry more water than feels reasonable—there are no cafés between the village and the river, and the reflecting limestone can push the perceived temperature into the mid-forties. Winter reverses the deal: bright, wind-sharpened days when the plateau glitters with frost and the Parador offers rooms for €85, less than most Premier Inns on a weekday.

The Practical Bits That Catch People Out

Parking on the Plaza Mayor is free but fill up before 11:00 on market day or you’ll be redirected to an unsigned gravel patch outside the walls. There is no cash machine inside the historic centre; the last bank is on the approach road, so stock up on coins for convent sweets. Monument opening times follow the Spanish siesta—most churches lock at 14:00 and reopen at 16:30, which catches out visitors hoping to fill an entire afternoon. Plan a leisurely lunch instead, or use the closed hours for the river or sabinar walks.

Mobile signal can drop to 3G inside the stone arcades—download offline maps before you arrive. Finally, pack rubber-soled shoes; the polished cobbles on the hill are treacherous when dew forms after dusk, especially for those used to carpeted British high streets.

A Quiet Exit

By 23:00 the square empties, the chemist’s shutters rattle down and Lerma returns to its default hush. Drive out under the same arch you entered and the palace lanterns recede in the rear-view mirror like a stage set whose curtain has fallen. There are no souvenir stalls, no neon signs, just the smell of wood-smoke and a faint awareness that, for a few hours, you walked through somebody else’s 400-year-old power fantasy. It’s an experience best appreciated slowly, preferably with a second glass of that under-priced Arlanza in your bloodstream and a packet of nun-made truffles for the road.