Logbook · 4 places

What to see and do in Castrillo del Val

What to see and do in Castrillo del Val (Burgos (Alfoz), Burgos): 4 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Castrillo del Val

The monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña 2.2 km

Towns near Castrillo del Val

Spain › Castile and León › Burgos › Burgos (Alfoz) › Castrillo del Val

What to see and do in Castrillo del Val

Castrillo del Val
Village
Castrillo del Val is a municipality of 858 inhabitants situated on the left bank of the river Arlanzón, on the edge of the Burgos plateau. On its territory stands the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, where the Cid was buried, a presence that the municipal coat of arms —designed in the year 2000 by the province's official chronicler, Fray Valentín de la Cruz— recalls with a bunch of thistles and the keys of San Pedro; the river Arlanzón itself is represented on the blazon by a wave of azure. Its festival of San Juan culminates in a bonfire lit on the heights of the Castillejo.
The monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña
Monument
The monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña is a Trappist abbey located in the municipality of Castrillo del Val, about 10 kilometres from the centre of Burgos. Already documented before the year 902, it is today a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), declared a historic-artistic monument of the Tesoro Artístico Nacional (a former Spanish heritage-protection category), by decree of 3 June 1931. In 2015 it was included, under number 979, in the retrospective inventory of associated elements that Spain submitted to Unesco when extending the designation of the Camino de Santiago to the northern routes. Tradition holds that El Cid left his wife and daughters here when he set out into exile, and that his remains rested in the monastery before being moved to the cathedral.
The Beatus of Cardeña scattered across three museums
Curiosity
The monastery's scriptorium produced between 1175 and 1180 an illuminated Beatus of great quality. Dismembered over time, its folios are today divided among collections in Madrid, New York and Girona.
The concentration camp of Cardeña
Historical milestone
During the Civil War the monastery was turned into a concentration camp through which more than four thousand Republican prisoners and international brigade members passed. The Trappists did not occupy it again until 1942.