Palenzuela

The sheep outnumber people by roughly ten to one. That ratio is the first thing you notice after the final bend, when Palenzuela’s stone roofs appear 800 m above sea level and the Duero basin spreads out like a browned parchment below. At dusk the bell in the Romanesque tower of San Juan strikes eight times; the sound carries for kilometres across wheat stubble, unanswered except by the clatter of a magpie settling on the medieval wall walk. You have arrived in one of Castilla y León’s least documented municipalities, a place guide-books confuse with Palencia city fifty kilometres away.

A Hill Made for Watching

Altitude changes everything up here. Mornings arrive sharp, even in May; by November the wind can knife straight through a Barbour jacket. The village sits on a quartzite ridge that once gave 14th-century sentries a 30-km view of pack-trains heading for the wool fairs of Burgos. Traces of that lookout mentality remain: the perimeter wall is not a neat tourist loop but a patchwork of house gables, garden railings and the odd intact parapet you can balance along if the farmer whose hen-run it borders is in a good mood. Entry was historically through two gates; the Portillo del Castillo is still the quickest way to the upper lanes, though today you’re more likely to meet a quad bike than a tax collector.

Inside, the street plan folds in on itself like crumpled paper. Calle de la Iglesia narrows to the width of a Land Rover before widening into a tiny plaza where the ayuntamiento flies both the Spanish and the Castilla y León flags from a balcony that looks ready to snap off. Stone house fronts are the colour of digestive biscuits; timber doors have iron studs big enough to discourage ram raids. Numbering is erratic—bring a sense of direction rather than a postcode.

Churches, Hospitals and Fallen Friars

Three churches, one hospital and a ruined Franciscan convent would be generous for a town ten times the size. Palenzuela keeps them all within a five-minute stroll, and none charges admission—partly because there is nowhere to buy a ticket, partly because doors open only when the key-holder, usually the man in the third house on the left, feels like it. San Juan Bautista, 13th-century at the core but Tudor-bricked up later, has a retablo whose gilt still smells of candle smoke. Santa Eulalia is smaller, darker, a swirl of late-Gothic ribs and plateresque panels slammed together during a 16th-century remodelling paid for by merino profits. Most surprising is San Pablo, locked the first two times you try, but once inside you find a fully dressed baroque altar and six choir stalls carved with the same walnut leaves you see on the surrounding plateau—someone once cared enough to import artistry to the edge of nowhere.

Opposite the bread shop stands the Hospital de Santo Domingo, a two-storey arcade built to shelter traders too late for the city gates. The mortar is crumbling like stale cheese, yet the coat-of-arms above the portal is crisp enough to photograph. Round the corner the ex-Convento de San Francisco is less photogenic: waist-high grass, one sidewall collapsed into a pile of russet stones, swallows nesting in what was the refectory. English Heritage would already have installed handrails and an audio guide; here you get silence, thistles and whatever narrative your imagination supplies.

Walking the Paramo

Palenzuela makes no attempt to market itself as an activity hub, which is precisely why hikers interested in empty country like it. A farm track leaves the eastern gate, dips through almond terraces and then strikes out across the paramo—rolling wheat fields that in July look sun-bleached, in March shimmer green like the Northumbrian cheviots. There is no way-marking beyond the occasional cement post with a faded red stripe. Carry water; the nearest certain bar is back in the village, and midday shade is theoretical. A circular trudge of 7 km brings you past stone dovecotes the size of British garden sheds: built to house pigeons whose droppings fertilised medieval allotments, they now serve as photographic foreground to the distant saw-toothed profile of the Sierra de la Demanda.

Serious walkers can link with the Ruta de Carlos V, the same Habsburg who diverted to Yuste. The stage from Palenzuela to Melgar de Fernamental is 19 km of tractor trail and drovers’ road, flat enough for walking shoes, dull enough to make you grateful for the company of a pair of short-toed eagles. In winter the path can cake your boots with chalky mud; in August the heat shimmers like a motorway mirage—start early or wait for the long Spanish twilight.

What You’ll Eat and Where You’ll Sleep

Accommodation within the village limits itself to one casa rural, three bedrooms, €70 a night, booked through the owner’s son who works in Valladolid and prefers WhatsApp to email. Bedding is line-dried, towels are small, the Wi-Fi copes with email but buckles under iPlayer. Breakfast is instant coffee and a pastry from the freezer; do not expect a full English or, indeed, any mention of vegetarian options.

For food you have two bars, both on the main drag, both with the television tuned to horse-racing or the football results from the Segunda División. The menu del día runs to garbanzos with spinach, lechazo asado (milk-fed lamb shoulder that arrives bronzed and threatens your cholesterol with every mouthful), and a pudding of cuajada, a sheep’s-milk junket reminiscent of school yoghurt. A half-bottle of local tempranillo costs €5; bread is counted out in exact slices and added to the bill at thirty cents each. If you would rather not watch your meat being carved from the saddle, drive fifteen minutes to Melgar where Mesón de la Villa offers grilled chicken and chips without anyone raising an eyebrow.

Getting Here, and the Things That Can Go Wrong

Palenzuela is not on the way to anywhere famous, which explains the absence of coach parties but also complicates arrival. The nearest airport with direct UK flights is Santander (Ryanair from Stansted or Manchester). From the arrivals hall it is 90 minutes south by hire car: A67 to Aguilar de Campoo, then the CL-626 secondary road that unfurls across the plateau like a tape measure. Fill up at the Repsol outside Osorno; the village garage closed five years ago and the next fuel is 25 km away.

Do not trust the postcode in a sat-nav—many devices default to Palencia city. Type “Palenzuela, Burgos province” or you will spend an hour circling wheat silos twenty kilometres north of where you want to be. Sunday closing is absolute; if your flight lands late Saturday, shop in Burgos for breakfast essentials or you will start Sunday with an empty larder and the next open supermarket 40 km distant.

Winter access can be entertaining. At 800 m the village catches snow that rarely settles in the nearby Duero valley; the CL-626 is ploughed eventually but not before locals have tested their tyre chains. If the forecast mentions “Cota 600 nieve,” postpone the trip or pack snow socks. Conversely July and August can hit 38 °C; stone houses stay cool but the streets offer no shade—early starts, long siestas and late walks are advisable.

The Particular Quiet of a Almost-Empty Place

By ten o’clock at night Palenzuela is dark enough to read star charts. The only illumination comes from the porch bulb outside the Guardia Civil post and the orange glow inside Bar Cristina where the last domino game breaks up. Footsteps echo off stone like pebbles dropped in a well. You realise why so few British travellers write about the place: nothing spectacular happens, and that, perversely, is the attraction. If you want medieval walls without entrance fees, churches unlocked by trust, and the sense that the Meseta is still a continent of open distances, Palenzuela delivers—just bring your own snacks and a tolerance for silence.