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What to see and do in Zael

What to see and do in Zael (Arlanza, Burgos): 1 place across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages

Towns near Zael

Zael
Village
Zael is a hamlet in the province of Burgos with 117 inhabitants on the banks of the Arlanza, at about 860 metres in the heart of the Castilian plateau, whose name comes from the Arabic sāhil, sandy stretch or sandy riverbed, the same root as the African Sahel region; indeed, Zael is the Castilian form of Cafael, the Mozarabic clan that settled here in the early 10th century, when the area was under neither Muslim nor Christian rule. In 937 Muniadona de Lara, mother of Count Fernán González, donated the nearby Valzalamio to the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña. Given over to farming, livestock and vineyards, it lost population in the rural exodus of the 1960s and 1970s to Madrid and the Basque Country. Its three-naved church, Gothic-Renaissance and dating from the 16th century, stands out for its columns and star-ribbed vaults.