Logbook · 4 places

What to see and do in Mombeltrán

What to see and do in Mombeltrán (Arenas de San Pedro, Ávila): 4 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments

How far each place is from the centre of Mombeltrán

Church of San Juan Bautista de Mombeltrán 50 m
Hospital of San Andrés 150 m

Towns near Mombeltrán

Spain › Castile and León › Ávila › Arenas de San Pedro › Mombeltrán

What to see and do in Mombeltrán

Mombeltrán
Village
Mombeltrán is a town in the province of Ávila, in the Tiétar valley, the hub of what is known as the valley of las Cinco Villas, in the heart of the sierra de Gredos. Before it was called Mombeltrán, the settlement went by several names: El Colmenar around 1250, Colmenar de Pascual Peláez in the late 13th century, Colmenar de las Ferrerías, after the comarca's iron mines, between 1393 and 1422, and Colmenar de Arenas between 1430 and 1453, until in 1461 it took the name Mombeltrán in deference by Henry IV of Castile to his favourite, Beltrán de la Cueva, who in the 15th century had built the castle that dominates the town, whose design is attributed to Juan Guas. The landscape combines meadows, pine woods and orchards with the snowdrifts of the sierra. It has about 922 inhabitants.
Castle of los Duques de Alburquerque
Monument
Beltrán de la Cueva had it raised in the second half of the 15th century dominating the ravine: a rectangular plan with towers at the corners, an underground chapel and passageways. The second duke adapted it as a Renaissance residence and filled in the moat.
Hospital of San Andrés
Monument
A former pilgrims' hospital located in Mombeltrán (Ávila), founded in 1517 by the prior of Ávila cathedral, Ruy García Manso, through a papal bull of Pope Leo X, to take in the poor and pilgrims heading down to the monastery of Guadalupe. The three-storey building was remodelled in 1797 and has a Renaissance portal in the cisneros style with fluted Ionic columns supporting the foundation plaque and García Manso's coat of arms, and a shell-shaped niche of red stone with swans in relief. The entrance hall preserves a Gothic inscription and the inner courtyard shows polychrome coats of arms on its four walls. It was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) on 9 January 1976.
Church of San Juan Bautista de Mombeltrán
Monument
The church of St John the Baptist in Mombeltrán is Gothic, from the 14th and 15th centuries: its main chapel dates from the 14th century, while the rest of the building, with three naves and four bays, is the work of Beltrán de la Cueva, first Duke of Alburquerque. The main chapel is hidden behind an 18th-century Churrigueresque altarpiece dedicated to St John the Baptist, surrounded by three paintings by Salvatore Galvani from 1798. In the Epistle nave stands the chapel of St Andrew, added in 1536 at the expense of Fernando Ochoa de Salazar, with altars to Our Lady of Peace and to St Andrew. Among its carvings is a 16th-century Virgin of Sorrows attributed to Gregorio Fernández. Declared a Monumento Histórico Artístico (a former Spanish heritage-protection category, precursor to the BIC) in 1982.