Herrera de Pisuerga

At 840 metres above sea level, the wind arrives earlier than the visitor. It skims across the cereal plains of northern Palencia, picks up the scent of dry barley stalks, and meets the first limestone outcrops of the Montaña Palentina. By the time it reaches Herrera de Pisuerga, it has forgotten the speed of Madrid, 180 kilometres south. The town’s single traffic light blinks amber for so long that locals treat it as a polite suggestion. This is the first lesson: clocks are decorative here.

The River and the Ruins

The Pisuerga slips past the town’s eastern edge, a slow brown coil that once carried Roman grain boats and now carries herons. A five-minute walk from the Plaza Mayor brings you to a riverside path where poplars rattle like old bones. The council has laid out wooden boardwalks for exactly 1.2 kilometres; after that, the path dissolves into goat tracks and sandbanks. Bring binoculars—kingfishers flash turquoise even in December, when the air temperature can sit five degrees below the provincial capital thanks to the altitude.

Roman stones are harder to spot. Pisoraca, the military camp that preceded Herrera, survives mostly as negative space: a wall footing here, a culvert there. The Interpretation Centre on Calle Sta. Ana will sell you a £3 booklet that overlays transparent maps on today’s streets; without it, you’ll stare at a rubble-strewn allotment and wonder why you bothered. Honesty compels admission—this is not Mérida. Yet the quiet hunt for fragments, the sudden realisation that a cottage window incorporates a 2,000-year-old lintel, delivers its own subdued thrill.

Brick, Wood and Roast Lamb

The town centre fits inside a triangle whose longest side measures 400 metres. Within that space you’ll find fifteen heraldic mansions whose coats-of-arms still bear the scars of 1936—bullets or hammer-and-sickle graffiti depending on which faction arrived first. Number 7 Plaza de España has a wooden balcony held together with wooden pegs; the carpenter’s initials are carved underneath, dated 1647. Knock and the owner, Señora Celemín, will let you photograph it for a euro, provided you attempt a sentence in Spanish.

Hunger is best tackled before three o’clock. The two restaurants that bother with tourists both serve lechazo—milk-fed lamb roasted in a wood-fired clay horno until the skin fractures like sugar glass. A quarter portion feeds two, costs around £18, and arrives with nothing more than a wedge of lemon and a basket of local bread. Vegetarians get a plate of judiones (giant butter beans) stewed with saffron and paprika; the flavour is gentle, the portion medieval. Wine comes from Tierra de León: pale, unoaked, and cold enough to shock a Rioja drinker. Cards are accepted, but the signal machine is carried ceremonially from the bar to the front step for better reception—plan an extra ten minutes for technology.

Walking Without Waymarks

Herrera functions as a base rather than a destination. At sunrise, the surrounding páramo glows pink and violet; by nine it has bleached to beige. A spider’s web of farm tracks heads north towards the first ridge of the Cantabrian foothills. The most straightforward route follows the GR-82, a long-distance path that nobody has heard of. Walk three kilometres and you reach the abandoned hamlet of Ojeda, where storks nest in the belfry and the only bar opens on 15 August for six hours. Continue another hour and limestone gives way to oak; shade appears like a luxury. Total ascent is 250 metres—enough to feel virtuous, insufficient to require poles.

Summer walkers should carry two litres of water; the nearest spring is a cattle trough two kilometres out, and the guard dog has opinions about sharing. Winter brings the opposite problem: the N-611 is occasionally closed by snow-drifts, and the town’s one supermarket stocks bread, tinned tuna and little else until the plough arrives. If you’re staying overnight, ask your host whether the boiler runs on butane—when the mercury dips below minus five, cylinders freeze and showers become philosophical.

When the Town Wakes Up

For fifty weekends a year, Herrera drowses. Then, on the first Friday of August, articulated lorries painted like crayons roll in with fairground rides and folding tables. The Festival del Cangrejo celebrates the tiny river crab once harvested by every schoolboy with a bit of bacon and a string. Today the crabs arrive frozen from León, but nobody minds. The plaza fills with smoke from three-metre paella pans; a kilo of crabs stewed with tomato and sweet paprika costs £10 and keeps you occupied for an hour. Rooms that normally go for £45 jump to £90 and sell out in March. If you hate crowds, come the weekend after instead: the bunting sags, the brass band is hung-over, and half-price crabs are served to anyone who lingers.

Getting There, Getting Away

No train line reaches Herrera. From the UK, fly to Bilbao, collect a hire car, and drive two hours south through Burgos; the last forty minutes cross empty plateau where black kites circle overhead. Alternatively, take the ALSA coach from Madrid’s Estación Sur at 08:30, arrive at 13:05 on the edge of the N-611, and walk ten minutes into town. The return coach leaves at 17:45; miss it and tomorrow’s service is full of Peruvian farm workers heading home for Saint Rose’s Day. Taxis from Palencia railway station cost £55 if you telephone ahead, £75 if you wait until arrival—there are only two licensed cars for the entire comarca.

The Last Light

Evening sneaks up early. By eight the river reflects a sky the colour of pale sherry, and swallows stitch the surface with their shadows. The ATM shutters itself at 20:30 sharp; the bakery sells yesterday’s bread for half price and locks the door behind you. Sit on the low wall by the medieval bridge, listen to the water negotiating the arches, and you will understand why half the British who come here stay longer than planned. There is no epiphany, no Instagram reveal—just the slow realisation that Spain can still do silence. Bring a jumper, even in July. The wind remembers altitude long after the sun has gone.