Logbook · 8 places

What to see and do in Villafranca Montes de Oca

What to see and do in Villafranca Montes de Oca (Montes de Oca, Burgos): 8 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

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

How far each place is from the centre of Villafranca Montes de Oca

The hospital of San Antonio Abad 250 m

Towns near Villafranca Montes de Oca

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

What to see and do in Villafranca Montes de Oca

Villafranca Montes de Oca
Village
Villafranca Montes de Oca is a town of 117 inhabitants located right on the Camino de Santiago, in the Montes de Oca district, 36 km from Burgos, where in winter barely sixty residents remain. Founded by the Romans as Auca somewhat further south of its current location, it was left half-destroyed by the Muslim invasion of the 8th century, and its urban centre gradually moved north, to the Oca valley, where it now forms a long row of houses alongside the N-120. It was an episcopal see until its transfer to Gamonal, now a district of Burgos, in 1075; in the ruins of the nearby hermitage of San Felices, Diego Porcelos, founder of Burgos, is said to be buried. It preserves the pilgrims' hospital of San Antonio Abad, from 1380, and in its church a giant shell weighing 65 kilos serves as a holy water font.
The hospital of San Antonio Abad
Monument
Doña Juana Manuel, wife of Enrique II, had this pilgrims' hospital raised around 1380, also known as the Hospital de la Reina; it attended to travellers before facing the most feared passage of the Montes de Oca.
The ruins of San Félix de Oca
Monument
Of the monastery already cited in 863 only the square chevet remains, covered with a dome on pendentives and opened by a horseshoe arch; tradition places here the burial of Count Diego Rodríguez Porcelos. It was declared a monument in 1931.
The Philippine shell of the church of Santiago
Curiosity
The church keeps as a holy water stoup a giant sea shell brought from the Philippines, of enormous size; pilgrims point it out as one of the curiosities of the Camino Francés on its passage through the province of Burgos.
The transfer of the episcopal see of Auca
Historical milestone
The ancient city and episcopal see of Auca occupied this site. In 1075 Alfonso VI moved the bishop's chair definitively to Burgos and the bishopric of Oca disappeared, leaving the villa reduced to a stage of the Camino.
The mass graves of La Pedraja
Historical milestone
In the hills of La Pedraja those repressed in the first months of the Civil War were buried clandestinely. Two graves exhumed in 2010 and 2011 yielded 135 bodies, of which only fifteen could be identified.
The watershed between the Ebro and the Duero
Nature
The Montes de Oca mark the line that separates the basins of the Ebro and the Duero: to the north the waters go down to the Oca and the Ebro, to the south to the Arlanzón and the Duero. The route crosses the ridge between 1,000 and 1,100 metres of altitude.
The pine and oak forests of the Oca pass
Nature
The ridge is walked among plantation pine woods and native oak forest, with an undergrowth of ferns and heather. The thickness gave the stretch its medieval fame, held to be the most dangerous of the Camino because of assaults by bandits.