Astudillo

A town that once hosted kings, now counts 1,000 souls

The first thing you notice is the sky. At 780 m above the wheat plain of El Cerrato it feels oversized, a pale dome that makes the stone town beneath it seem even smaller. Astudillo stretches along a low ridge, one main street and a handful of lanes, all built from the same honey-coloured sandstone that turns copper at dusk. No souvenir stalls, no audio-guides, just the echo of your own footsteps and the occasional clang of the church bell that has marked the hours since the fourteenth century.

This was once a royal seat. Pedro I – “the Cruel” if you were his enemy, “the Lawgiver” if you weren’t – was born here in 1334 and brought his entire court for long hunting stays. The palace is gone, but the parish church of San Pedro still lifts its square Gothic tower like a flagpole of stone. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and centuries-old pine. A Renaissance altarpiece occupies the whole east wall; look up and you’ll find delicate Mudéjar ceilings, their interlaced woodwork repeated in the choir stalls. Opening hours are posted on a scrap of paper taped to the door; if the church is locked, the key is kept at the bar opposite, where the owner will wipe her hands on her apron before leading you back across the street.

Three churches, one convent and a museum the size of a living room

Santa Eugenia, two minutes away, is older and simpler: thick Romanesque doorway, three-aisle nave, a single stained-glass window throwing blue shards onto the flagstones. Santa Marina, the smallest of the trio, stands on the edge of the old walls; its bell cage is open to the weather, the ironwork rusting like an old farm tool. Linking them is a skeleton of medieval wall, pierced by the Arco de San Martín. Don’t expect a continuous rampart – fragments appear between houses, sometimes as the back wall of a garage.

The Convento de Santa Clara, founded by Pedro’s mistress María de Padilla, keeps its cloister locked behind a modern wooden door. Ring the bell and a nun will sell you a postcard through the grille while the convent cat weaves round your ankles. The town’s Museo Romano, housed in the former primary school, has glass cases of pottery, coins and a mosaic lifted from the nearby villa of La Olmeda. The curator will switch the lights on if you ask; admission is free, though the donation jar helps keep the dehumidifier running.

Lamb, lentils and the absence of traffic

By twelve-thirty the smell of roasting lechazo drifts from the two mesones on Calle Real. Milk-fed lamb is cooked whole in wood-fired clay ovens until the skin crackles like parchment; expect half a kilo per portion, served on a metal plate with roast potatoes and a wedge of lemon. Vegetarians get a bowl of menestra de verduras – whatever the gardener picked that morning, stewed with pimentón and a splash of the local tempranillo. House wine comes in a plain glass bottle and costs €1.80; it is bottled 40 km away and drinks better than many £15 supermarket reds back home.

After lunch everything stops. Shops pull down metal shutters, the pharmacy turns its sign to “vuelvo enseguida” and the only sound is the grain elevator humming on the outskirts. If you need cash, get it before two; the single ATM runs out of notes at weekends and is not refilled until Monday.

Walking the cereal ocean

Astudillo sits in the centre of a shallow basin of wheat and barley. Tracks head out like spokes: north to Boada de Campos (6 km), south to Villovieco (5 km), east to the ruins of the Roman villa at La Olmeda (3 km). The going is flat, the paths wide enough for a tractor, but shade is non-existent; in July the thermometer touches 35 °C by eleven. Spring is safer: green shoots push through red soil, skylarks hang overhead, and the wind still carries a chill that justifies a jumper. October turns the stubble fields bronze; sunset hits the stone walls and the whole town glows as if someone lit a fire inside it.

There are no way-marked circuits, no National Trust car parks, just the occasional wooden post with a fading arrow. Take water, a hat, and OS-style Spanish military maps if you plan to loop further into El Cerrato. Mobile reception is patchy between the grain silos.

How to arrive without a royal retinue

Astudillo has no railway station. The daily bus from Palencia (40 km) leaves at 07:15 and returns at 14:00; it is aimed at schoolchildren and does not run at weekends. British visitors usually fly to Santander (Ryanair from London, Manchester, Edinburgh) or Valladolid (summer service from Stansted). Hire car is essential: the drive from Santander takes 1 h 45 min up the A-67, then a final 20 min on the quiet A-6219 across open plateau. Parking is free on the rough ground by the sports field; motorhomes overnight there without fuss, though there are no services.

Accommodation is limited. The town has one two-star hostal above the bakery – seven rooms, shared terrace overlooking the grain silos, €45 a night including coffee and churros. Palencia offers smarter choices twenty-five minutes away if you need a lift to your luggage or crave air-conditioning. Book dinner in advance at weekends; the mesones will do a full sitting of locals celebrating First Communions and you may be turned away.

What you won’t find – and might miss

There is no nightlife beyond the bar with a pool table and a television permanently tuned to horse racing. The thermal spa on the edge of town closed a decade ago; its peeling façade is fenced off. If you want cafés with soya milk or craft beer, keep driving to León. Astudillo offers instead a scale that lets you memorise the layout in an hour and the faces in a day. By the second evening the barman will guess your order, and the evening passeggiata will include you in its slow orbit of church, square, bench, repeat.

Come for the architecture if you like stone that has never been power-washed, for the landscape if horizontal emptiness calms you. Come in spring when storks clatter on the bell tower, or in autumn when the grain dust hangs in gold shafts of light. Don’t come expecting queues, gift shops or Instagram moments – Astudillo gave those up with the crown.