Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Barrios de Colina

What to see and do in Barrios de Colina (Montes de Oca, Burgos): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

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

How far each place is from the centre of Barrios de Colina

Hiniestra 1.3 km
The tomb of San Juan de Ortega 3.1 km

Towns near Barrios de Colina

Spain › Castile and León › Burgos › Montes de Oca › Barrios de Colina

What to see and do in Barrios de Colina

Barrios de Colina
Village
Barrios de Colina is a municipality of Burgos in the comarca of the Alfoz de Burgos, 21 kilometres north of the capital, near the sierra de la Demanda, which brings together Barrios, the hamlet of Hiniestra and that of San Juan de Ortega, a landmark of the French Way that grew up around the monastery the saint founded there in the 12th century. In its church, every 21 March and 22 September, at five in the afternoon by solar time, a ray of sunlight illuminates the capital of the Annunciation, the so-called phenomenon of the equinoctial light. The municipality, a former town of the Hermandad de Montes de Oca, lives on cereal farming and tourism. It now has 55 inhabitants.
Hiniestra
Curiosity
A tiny settlement of eight inhabitants, a minor local entity of Barrios de Colina in the Montes de Oca district, 23 km from Burgos. It belonged to the Hermandad de Montes de Oca and the district of Juarros, and in the 1842 census it had ten households and twenty-six residents; by the mid-19th century it had twelve houses and appears described in the Diccionario de Pascual Madoz. Its church, under the invocation of the Natividad de Nuestra Señora and dependent on the archpriesthood of San Juan de Ortega, has been in ruins since the 1970s due to the archbishopric's neglect. Every 2 June it takes part with its banner in the pilgrimage of San Juan de Ortega, which brings together 26 villages, and celebrates its patronal feast on 12 October in honour of the Virgin.
The tomb of San Juan de Ortega
Monument
In the monastery church, in the town of San Juan de Ortega, lies the builder of bridges and pilgrim roads on the Way of St James, who died in 1163; his Gothic stone tomb, carved in the 15th century, stands under a canopy above the original Romanesque crypt. Born in 1080 in Quintanaortuño, he devoted his life to helping pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago by building bridges, roads and a hostel in the Montes de Oca, where around 1138 he founded the monastery that would come to bear his name. It was governed by Augustinian canons and, from 1431, by Hieronymite monks until the disentailment of 1835. The church, Romanesque and Gothic, was declared a monument in 1931 and preserves the capital of the Annunciation, where at the equinoxes a ray of sunlight illuminates the figure of the Virgin at five o'clock in the afternoon.
The miracle of the equinoctial light
Curiosity
Twice a year a ray of sun enters through a window of the apse and lights up for some eight minutes the triple capital of the triumphal arch, running in order over the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity and the announcement to the shepherds.
The capital of Roland and Ferragut
Curiosity
Among the sculpture of the monastery a capital is preserved with the combat of the knight Roland and the giant Ferragut, an episode of the Carolingian cycle that the literature of the Camino de Santiago spread along the whole route and that here was carved in stone.
The pilgrimage of Isabella the Catholic
Historical milestone
Worried about her barrenness, the queen went in 1477 to the saint's tomb and, according to tradition, wore his hair shirt; the following year prince Juan was born, and she afterwards paid for the Gothic chapel that today shelters the tomb.
The garlic soup of the pilgrims
Food and drink
In the hamlet of San Juan de Ortega, the last stop before Burgos, the custom is kept up of receiving the walker with Castilian garlic soup: stale bread, garlic, paprika and broth, a winter dish born of scarcity.