Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Lerma

What to see and do in Lerma (Arlanza, Burgos): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Activities · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

Towns near Lerma

Spain › Castile and León › Burgos › Arlanza › Lerma

What to see and do in Lerma

Lerma
Village
Lerma is a ducal town in the province of Burgos with 2,629 inhabitants, set on a knoll overlooking the vega of the Arlanza river, declared a historic ensemble and listed among the most beautiful villages of Spain since 2018. Its development is linked to the patronage of Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, first Duke of Lerma and valido (chief minister) of Philip III, who between 1601 and 1606 turned the town into a courtly Valladolid, with a Herrerian architectural ensemble whose palace and great main square, of almost 7,000 m², one of the largest in Spain, were built to designs by Francisco de Mora. It preserves three enclosed convents with more than a hundred nuns, and since 1960 it has hosted the Feria de Maquinaria Agrícola, the most important agricultural machinery fair in northern Spain.
The ducal palace and its four towers
Monument
Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, favourite of Felipe III, raised it to designs by Francisco de Mora. He asked the king's licence for two towers without making clear that they would be two more than the usual, and ended with four; today it is a parador.
The seven-thousand-square-metre Plaza Mayor
Monument
One of the most extensive main squares in Spain, originally arcaded on all four sides. It served as a market, a bullring and a theatre; Lope de Vega described it as a beautiful square that looked like a painting.
The 1615 organs of the collegiate church of San Pedro
Monument
The Collegiate Church of San Pedro de Lerma, laid out in 1613, was consecrated in 1617 with great festivities for the court and the nobility that lasted twenty-one days; the Duke of Lerma secured for the abbey direct dependence on Rome. Plain on the outside, with a four-tiered tower and a doorway bearing the coats of arms of the Sandoval and Rojas families, its interior contrasts with Gothic vaults and a 13th-century Romanesque baptismal font decorated with centaurs, lions and griffins among foliage. The Baroque high altarpiece presiding over the presbytery, begun in 1690, replaces the original, of which only the tabernacle survives, in marble and bronze. The collegiate church has three naves with an ambulatory and no transept, and preserves two of the oldest organs still played in Spain, dated 1615 and 1616.
The Baroque Festival of Lerma
Activity
At the beginning of August the town programmes concerts that make use of the historic organs of the collegiate church and the spaces of the ducal complex, reviving the repertoire that sounded here when the court moved to the village.
The fall of the royal favourite
Historical milestone
The duke of Lerma lost the favour of Felipe III in 1618 and withdrew after having obtained the cardinal's hat. His fall left half finished the ambitious urban project that had turned this town of the Arlanza into a court.
The sugar cake of Lerma
Food and drink
The town's confectionery carries the refined taste left by the ducal residence, and its best-known piece is the sugar tart: fine puff pastry covered with caramelised sugar, sold in the confectioners' shops of the old quarter.