Logbook · 8 places

What to see and do in Terrinches

What to see and do in Terrinches (Campo de Montiel, Ciudad Real): 8 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Curiosities

When to go to Terrinches: festival calendar

August: Main festivities of Terrinches (13 al 17 de agosto)

How far each place is from the centre of Terrinches

Towns near Terrinches

Spain › Castilla-La Mancha › Ciudad Real › Campo de Montiel › Terrinches

What to see and do in Terrinches

Terrinches
Village
Municipality of the comarca of Campo de Montiel, in the province of Ciudad Real, whose district preserves the Castillejo del Bonete, a Chalcolithic and Bronze Age site with burial mounds joined by megalithic corridors around a cave-chamber with burials, declared an Archaeological Zone in 2014 and open to guided visits, and the Roman villa with baths of La Ontavia. Sites of Cultural Interest are the parish church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán and the chapel of Nuestra Señora de Luciana, whose feast day, 15 August, links up with the principal festivals.
Castillejo del Bonete
Monument
Castillejo del Bonete is a Chalcolithic and Bronze Age site located in Terrinches, in the Campo de Montiel, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) as an Archaeological Zone in 2014 and open to guided visits. It is a solar sanctuary made up of several mounds connected by corridors, some funnel-shaped and oriented towards the winter solstice, built over a natural cave sealed from prehistory until its discovery in 2003 and which preserves schematic rock art. Both the cave and the outer mounds were used for more than a thousand years to bury people and celebrate rites with food and drink. The archaeologist Martín Almagro Gorbea considers it one of the most important finds in western Europe this century.
Tower of Terrinches
Monument
The tower or castle of Terrinches stands to the west of the municipality, in the province of Ciudad Real. It belonged to the knights of the Order of Santiago and probably dates from the late 13th century, perhaps from the time of Alfonso X the Wise; it served as a refuge and defence for local people against Muslim attacks, and in 1282 it withstood an assault by the sultan of Morocco Aben Yucef, who managed to set it on fire without securing the surrender of its defenders. It is a square-plan building, 17 metres long and 289 square metres in area, with a ground floor used as a storeroom with large earthenware jars and a main floor with arrow slits; it today houses the Interpretation Centre of the Order of Santiago.
Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán de Terrinches
Monument
The church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán is the parish church of Terrinches, in the Campo de Montiel region (Ciudad Real), declared a bien de interés cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection). It was built between 1468 and 1493 in a first phase, and between 1494 and 1515, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, in a second phase that added flamboyant Gothic decorative elements to the doorways and openings; the main doorway, with pointed arches and an ogee arch topped with coats of arms and rose windows, dates from 1520. It follows the fortress-church scheme, with a single nave with load-bearing walls and eleven exterior buttresses, and has a bell tower at its foot, square in its first tier and octagonal in the second. Inside, the main altarpiece, with three bays and Ionic and Corinthian orders, is in Neoclassical style.
Hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Luciana
Monument
Hermitage located in the municipality of Terrinches, declared a bien de interés cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) and dedicated to the Virgen de Luciana, whose feast day is celebrated on 15 August. It has a rectangular plan with a main chapel with ribbed vaulting, remodelled in the 16th century with pointed transverse arches; in the late 17th and early 18th centuries its wooden roof was replaced with a barrel vault and the Virgin's camarín was built behind the presbytery. It preserves an altarpiece commissioned around 1535 to house the old Romanesque alabaster image of Nuestra Señora de Luciana, venerated in the region since ancient times, the work of a Castilian master close to the schools of Guadalajara and Cuenca. The current image is the work of the sculptor Manuel Pineda Calderón, dated 1939.
Roman villa of La Ontavia
Nature
The La Ontavia site, in the municipal area of Terrinches (Ciudad Real), lies next to the Mairena stream and close to the old Vía Augusta, in the territory of the ancient Mentesa Oretana. It houses a notable Roman thermal complex or balneum, dated between the 2nd and 5th centuries, with a changing room and cold and hot rooms, and hypocaust heating beneath the floors; in some sections the walls stand up to two metres high. A late antique and early medieval necropolis was later built over these structures, with more than fifty graves oriented from west to east, with finds including bronze and silver rings. Excavation campaigns from 2007 to 2014 documented more than 2,000 m² of structures. Declared a bien de interés patrimonial (a heritage-protection category in Castilla-La Mancha) in 2017, it is now fenced off and visited on guided tours.
Main festivities of Terrinches
Activity
The main festival of Terrinches is held from 13 to 17 August and is the principal event of the municipality's festive calendar, in honour of the Virgen de Luciana, patron saint of the village, whose feast day falls on the 15th. The hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Luciana, located within the municipal area, is the centre of local devotion.
The mayor who declared a state of emergency
Curiosity
During the attempted coup d'état of 1981 the mayor of Terrinches was the only one in all Spain's municipalities to declare a state of emergency in his town.