Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Oña

What to see and do in Oña (La Bureba, Burgos): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 2 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Oña

The monastery of San Salvador de Oña 150 m

Towns near Oña

What to see in Cantabrana 4.5 km · 2 places
What to see in Quintanaopio 6.7 km · 1 place
What to see in Cillaperlata 6.9 km · 8 places
What to see in Salas de Bureba 6.9 km · 2 places
What to see in Aguas Cándidas 7.6 km · 2 places
What to see in Trespaderne 7.8 km · 3 places
What to see in Navas de Bureba 9 km · 1 place
What to see in Los Barrios de Bureba 10 km · 2 places

Spain › Castile and León › Burgos › La Bureba › Oña

What to see and do in Oña

Oña
Village
Oña is a town in the comarca of La Bureba, in the province of Burgos, 57 kilometres from the provincial capital, whose old town has been a historic site since 1999; it has 938 inhabitants and forms, together with Poza de la Sal and Frías, the Raíces de Castilla association of municipalities. The river Oca crosses it from south to north before joining the Ebro, between the Sierra de Oña, part of the Montes Obarenes-San Zadornil Natural Park. Although it preserves remains of Palaeolithic caves and of a Romanised Autrigones hillfort, its entry into history dates from the mid-7th century, as a fortified bastion against Muslim pressure. Its monastery of San Salvador, founded in 1011 by Count Sancho García and run by Benedictine monks until 1835, holds one of the most notable royal pantheons in Castile.
The monastery of San Salvador de Oña
Monument
Count Sancho García founded it in 1011, and it became one of the most influential institutions in Castile. It holds a royal pantheon with the tombs of Castilian and Navarrese counts and kings beneath the abbey church. He founded it as a double monastery for his daughter Tigridia; in 1033 it came under the authority of the Cluniac monks, its period of greatest development, during which it came to have under its jurisdiction more than seventy monasteries and churches in the north of Burgos, Cantabria and the Palencia stretch of the Pisuerga. The French invasion and the Mendizábal disentailment later caused destruction and the abandonment of the community; in the 16th century the monk Ponce de León founded there the world's first school for the deaf and mute. Since 1835 the church has been a parish, and the monastic buildings, acquired by the Jesuits in 1880, housed their Colegio Máximo of theology and philosophy until 1967.
The gorge of la Horadada
Nature
North of the town the Ebro breaks the limestone barrier in a narrow gorge with vertical walls through which it leaves the municipal district. It is the natural feature that has conditioned the passage of roads and travellers for centuries.
The Montes Obarenes-San Zadornil Natural Park
Nature
The eastern sierra of the municipal district of Oña forms part of the Montes Obarenes-San Zadornil natural park, declared in 2006 in the northeast of the province of Burgos, on the boundary with Álava. The Montes Obarenes form the southernmost foothills of the Cantabrian mountain range and rise like a natural wall above the flat lands of La Bureba, with a Jurassic-type structural relief whose highest point is the Humión peak, at 1437 metres; the park, bounded to the north by the river Ebro, encompasses the sierras of Oña, La Llana, Pancorbo and Árcena. At this botanical crossroads, Atlantic beech and oak woods coexist with Mediterranean holm-oak groves, quejigo-oak groves and juniper stands, and on its cliffs red-billed choughs and cliff-dwelling birds of prey nest.
El Cronicón de Oña
Activity
Every August, from the 11th to the 15th, the people of Oña perform through the streets and inside the church of the Monastery of San Salvador a play that dramatises a large part of the town's medieval past, with hundreds of extras and period costumes; the last two years it has been staged in the Patio de San Íñigo of the monastery itself. The performance recreates the origins of the monastery, founded in 1011 by Count Sancho García and his wife doña Urraca, who named their daughter Tigridia its first abbess, within the account of the struggles of the Castilian counts, from Fernán González to Sancho García, against Almanzor. It is the people of Oña themselves who perform it, with no professional interest, passing the tradition on to new generations.
The declaration of Oña as a historic ensemble
Historical milestone
On 18 February 1999 the entire town was declared a bien de interés cultural with the category of historic site, protecting the medieval built fabric grown in the shadow of the Benedictine monastery.