Logbook · 9 places

What to see and do in Belorado

What to see and do in Belorado (Montes de Oca, Burgos): 9 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 · 3 Food and drink

Towns near Belorado

Spain › Castile and León › Burgos › Montes de Oca › Belorado

What to see and do in Belorado

Belorado
Village
Belorado is a town in the comarca of Montes de Oca, in the province of Burgos, with about 1,820 inhabitants, on the banks of the Tirón river and capital of the sub-comarca known as La Riojilla Burgalesa. It is a stage on the French Way of Saint James, recognised by Unesco in 2015. Tradition and archaeological remains place the original village, of Roman foundation, on the nearby plateau known as La Mesa, before it moved to its present site; nearby lies the Celtic settlement of La Muela, the germ of present-day Belorado. In the Middle Ages, Alfonso I of Aragon granted it fueros, an event commemorated each June at the Feria Alfonsina. Beneath the hill of the old castle, the church of Santa María holds a Jacobean chapel with a 16th-century altarpiece, and in August it celebrates San Vitores.
The council porch of the church of San Pedro
Monument
The church that presides over the Plaza Mayor preserves a portico beneath which the council of the villa met in the Middle Ages. The building, much remodelled in the seventeenth century, keeps a Rococo altarpiece and vaults painted by Gaspar Palacios.
The hermit caves of San Caprasio
Nature
Beneath the scarp of the castle, in the ravine of the Cárcabas stream, open three caves that tradition attributes to the hermits San Caprasio, Santa Pía and San Valentín; they are interpreted as remains of an early medieval rock settlement.
The charter and fair of San Miguel
Historical milestone
Alfonso I the Battler granted in 1116 a fuero to Bilforad, giving it exemption from tolls, freedom of trade and an annual fair at Michaelmas, held to be one of the first documented fairs in Spain.
The Alfonsine Fair
Activity
Every summer the villa re-enacts its medieval fuero: workshops of smithing and stonecutting, traditional spinning and baking, falconry, period music and fire parades fill the arcaded Plaza Mayor and the streets of the old quarter.
The caparrón beans of the Tirón valley
Food and drink
The caparrón, a red bean of short, rounded grain, is stewed here with its sacraments: chorizo, black pudding and rib. It is the winter dish of the comarca, heir to the irrigated huerta that the Tirón feeds.
The black pudding of Belorado
Food and drink
Made with rice, blood, onion, lard and pepper, the local black pudding is distinguished by its shape and its point of cooking within the Burgos tradition, covered by the protected geographical indication Morcilla de Burgos.
The market garden of the Tirón floodplain
Food and drink
The closeness to La Rioja and the alluvial lands of the Tirón give this plain onions, garlic, leeks and peppers of comarca-wide fame, the basis of the local stews and of a border cooking between the Castilian and the Riojan.
The ravine of las Cárcabas
Nature
The Cárcabas stream has dug a ravine of reddish sandstone at the foot of the hill crowned by the ruins of the castle; the whole forms a natural viewpoint over the plain of the Tirón and over the caves opened in the rock.