Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Medina de Pomar

What to see and do in Medina de Pomar (Las Merindades, Burgos): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

How far each place is from the centre of Medina de Pomar

Towns near Medina de Pomar

Spain › Castile and León › Burgos › Las Merindades › Medina de Pomar

What to see and do in Medina de Pomar

Medina de Pomar
Village
Medina de Pomar is a town of around 6,190 inhabitants at the heart of the Merindades of Burgos, the most populous in the comarca, between the riverside landscapes of the Nela and Trueba rivers and the escarpments of the sierra de la Tesla. Its name would combine the Arabic medina, “city”, and the Latin pomar, “place of apple trees”. Granted in lordship to the Velasco family in 1369, it preserves the alcázar of the Condestables, known as Las Torres, the monastery of Santa Clara, founded in 1313, and the Romanesque hermitage of San Millán. Alongside the río Trueba stretches the Villacobos park, the largest green space in the town and a traditional summer bathing spot, near the historic Pozo de la Peña. A network of waymarked trails, including a 73-kilometre GR route, crosses the municipality.
Alcázar of the Constables of Medina de Pomar
Monument
Raised in 1370 by Pedro Fernández de Velasco, it combines two quadrangular towers joined by a central block; it houses today the Museo Histórico de las Merindades and is the most imposing civil construction of the north of Burgos.
Monastery of Santa Clara de Medina de Pomar
Monument
The Monastery of Santa Clara, in Medina de Pomar (Burgos), was founded by Sancho Sánchez de Velasco, adelantado mayor to Alfonso XI, and his wife Sancha García, under a deed granted in Baeza on 11 January 1313. Over the centuries all members of the Velasco family, except for the first constable, were buried in the monastery. It today houses a 14th-century Gothic church with a single nave and side chapels, the Velasco family pantheon and the Museo de los Condestables, with a Recumbent Christ by Gregorio Fernández. On the main altar three gilded rococo altarpieces stand out, along with the 16th-century Chapel of the Concepción. It was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) on 2 April 1992 and celebrated its seventh centenary in 2013.
Carlos I stays in Medina de Pomar
Historical milestone
In 1557 the emperor Carlos I halted in Medina de Pomar on his way to the monastery of Yuste; that imperial passage is re-enacted every October in the villa, which Enrique II had handed over in 1369 to Pedro Fernández de Velasco.
Medina lettuces and perrechico mushroom scramble
Food and drink
The vegetable gardens of the plains of the Nela and the Trueba give the lettuce that bears the villa's name; in spring it is accompanied by scrambled eggs with perrechicos, the St George's mushroom that sprouts in the meadows of the Merindades.