Logbook · 3 places

What to see and do in Valle de Oca

What to see and do in Valle de Oca (Montes de Oca, Burgos): 3 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Nature · 1 Activities

Towns near Valle de Oca

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

What to see and do in Valle de Oca

Valle de Oca
Village
Valle de Oca is a municipality in the Montes de Oca district, in northeastern Burgos, created in the 19th century by grouping together six small settlements in the valley of the río Oca — Cueva Cardiel, Villalmóndar, Villalbos, Villanasur Río de Oca, Villalómez and Mozoncillo de Oca — spread over less than forty square kilometres and with 160 inhabitants combined; the town hall is in Villanasur. Until the mid-9th century the valley was practically unpopulated, barely a passageway between the Leonese Christian and Navarrese fronts, until around 836 the priest Cardello founded Cueva Cardiel, and in the first half of the 10th century the Ansúrez family settled Villanasur and count Abolmondar Albo founded Villalmóndar and Villalbos. In Villalómez and Villanasur the game of the Tuta and the Tejos survives.
The banks of the Oca river
Nature
The Oca River rises in the Montes de Oca, near Rábanos, and is the first tributary the Ebro receives after its source; it runs for 70 kilometres and flows from south to north through, among others, the six villages that make up the municipality of Valle de Oca: Cueva Cardiel, Villalmóndar, Villalbos, Villanasur Río de Oca —seat of the town council—, Villalómez and Mozoncillo de Oca. Its banks and tributaries form a Natura 2000 site, and its alder and poplar groves thread together the small hamlets of the municipality. Near its source the river narrows through the La Hoz gorge, once defended by Alba castle, today flooded by the reservoir of the same name, and further on it crosses the Valle de los Ajos amid oak woods. It should not be confused with its homophone, the Oka River in Biscay.
The Beheading of San Juan at Villalmóndar
Activity
On 29 August the hamlet of Villalmóndar, with eight registered residents, celebrates the Beheading of San Juan, one of the festivals that keep alive the calendar of the six localities of the valley alongside the Nativity of Cueva Cardiel.