Wamba

The iron gate creaks open and a narrow staircase drops into semi-darkness. At the bottom, femurs are stacked like firewood, crowned with rows of yellowed skulls that grin beneath a vaulted stone ceiling. No, this isn’t a Hammer film set – it’s the ossuary under the tenth-century church of Santa María, and the reason most travellers remember the name Wamba long after they have forgotten every other village on the Castilian meseta.

Seventy kilometres north-west of Valladolid, the settlement squats at 785 m on the limestone ridge of the Montes Torozos. That elevation tempers the summer furnace of the Duero basin – mornings stay fresh until ten – but it also summons a knife-edge wind in winter that can make a five-minute walk to the bar feel like Arctic training. Come prepared, because shelter is scarce: beyond the church, the ayuntamiento and a single café, Wamba is basically one L-shaped street and a cluster of wheat-coloured houses.

A king, a legend and a very small plaza

According to medieval chronicles, the Visigoth king Wamba was crowned here in 672 after a torch-carrying delegation begged him to rule. Historians argue about the detail, yet the tale is repeated with pride by the village’s 289 inhabitants and echoed in the stone blocks of Santa María. The building began life as a Mozarabic chapel, gained a Romanesque nave in the twelfth century and later acquired a plateresque altarpiece whose gilded spirals still catch the light when the west door swings open at 11 a.m. Entry is free; the sacristan simply points to the stairwell and nods. No waiver forms, no audio-guide – just the expectation that you will mind your head and close the gate on the way out.

The bone chamber, no larger than a suburban bathroom, holds an estimated three thousand skeletons exhumed from the parish cemetery between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. A plaque in Spanish explains that the remains were arranged “to inspire piety”; the English-speaking visitor usually translates that as “to induce nightmares”. Bring a phone with the Google camera-translate app because nothing else is subtitled.

Back in daylight, the village takes all of twenty minutes to cross. Adobe walls bulge outward, propped by timber buttresses older than the Union Flag. Many cellars are scooped directly into the limestone – perfect for keeping wine at 14 °C, less perfect for phone reception. Peek through any half-open portal and you will see a cobbled courtyard, a hay bale, perhaps a retired tractor tyre repurposed as a flowerbed. It is quiet enough to hear your own footsteps, plus the odd clank of the church bell that still marks the quarters.

Roads made for bikes, not buses

Wamba sits on the CV-110, a road so lightly trafficked that the white centre line fades to ghost stripes. Cyclists love the loop that rolls 67 km from Valladolid past wheat fields and stork nests; gradients rarely top three per cent, which in Iberian terms counts as flat. Drivers, meanwhile, appreciate the ample verge that doubles as a free car park – capacity twelve vehicles, so arrive before the Sunday tortilla rush or be ready to reverse 400 m to the grain silo.

There is no bus service. Regional coaches between Valladolid and Medina de Rioseco will drop you at the crossroads four kilometres away, after which you march along a tarmac ribbon between barley and sunflowers. In April the verge is littered with purple Silene flowers; by July the same plants are desiccated stalks that rattle like castanets in the breeze. Hitching is technically possible – locals are courteous – but British travellers should note that Spanish farmers work to a timetable, not a timetable plus ten minutes for small talk.

What passes for lunch

The only public food outlet is Bar La Rinconada, squeezed between the pharmacy (permanently closed) and somebody’s garage. House rules: toasted sandwich (mixto) €3.20, coffee €1.40, house red from Rueda €2 a glass. The wine is light enough to drink at eleven in the morning without ruining the afternoon, which is fortunate because nothing else opens before dusk. Vegetarians survive on tortilla; vegans should have thought ahead. There is no cash machine, and the proprietor prefers coins – the nearest bank is in Ciguñuela, 11 km east.

Picnic shoppers should stock up in Valladolid the night before. Supermarkets there sell two local specialities that travel well: queso de oveja, a firm sheep-milk cheese with a lanolin aroma, and hornazo, a sweetish pork pie originally baked for field labourers. Both withstand a morning in the boot without refrigeration, letting you turn the scrappy plaza bench into an impromptu tasting session.

Beyond the bones: walking the Torozos

If the ossuary feels too Gothic, the surrounding páramo offers gentler distraction. A way-marked footpath strikes south for 6 km to the abandoned village of Villamol. Stone walls still stand, but roofs collapsed decades ago; inside one hearth you will find a neatly stacked pile of almond shells left by some previous hiker. The track continues through holm-oak pasture where great bustards occasionally land – they look like small ostriches in flight, all white wing flashes and incredulous expressions. Binoculars are advised: the birds spook if you advance within 200 m.

Spring arrives late at this altitude. Mid-April brings a haze of green wheat and enough wildflowers for respectable photos, yet nights stay cool enough to justify a fleece. By mid-June the landscape has turned the colour of digestive biscuits and daytime temperatures flirt with 34 °C. August is simply hot, dry and shadeless – plan dawn or dusk excursions unless you enjoy sun-induced hallucinations of Visigoth cavalry. Winter is a lottery: bright blue skies one day, horizontal sleet the next. The church stays open year-round, but the gravel paths ice over; walking boots with tread are safer than fashionable trainers.

Where to lay your head – or not

Wamba itself offers zero accommodation. The nearest beds are in Ciguñuela (rural house El Pajar, doubles €70) or at Hotel Rural San Pelayo, 19 km north-west, where rooms overlook a stone irrigation channel that once fed a medieval mill. Both fill up at Easter and during the September wine harvest, so book ahead rather than assuming you can “wing it” after dark. Most British visitors base themselves in Valladolid, enjoy the city’s tapas scene, then make a 35-minute morning run to the village. That strategy works, provided you remember the church closes for lunch at 13:30 sharp; the sacristan has no sympathy for anyone who arrives at 13:34 complaining of traffic.

Depart with the wind in your face

Leave mid-afternoon, when the sun tilts and the stone walls glow ochre, and Wamba quickly shrinks in the rear-view mirror. Ten minutes later you are engulfed by cereal plains again, the tower of Santa María reduced to a punctuation mark on the horizon. A stop here is not life-changing, yet the memory of that subterranean bone stack lingers – a blunt reminder that kingdoms, tourist routes and even entire villages eventually crumble into artefacts. Come for the skulls, stay for the silence, and depart before the wind convinces you to join them.