Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Quintanar de la Sierra

What to see and do in Quintanar de la Sierra (Sierra de la Demanda, Burgos): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Nature · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones · 2 Food and drink

Towns near Quintanar de la Sierra

Spain › Castile and León › Burgos › Sierra de la Demanda › Quintanar de la Sierra

What to see and do in Quintanar de la Sierra

Quintanar de la Sierra
Village
Quintanar de la Sierra is a town of 1,474 inhabitants in the comarca of the Sierra de la Demanda, in the province of Burgos, also placed between the comarcas of La Demanda y Pinares, and living on sawmills and timber. It sits on the southern slope of the Campiña peak, 2,048 metres high, the highest point in its territory, in surroundings dominated by the sierra de Neila, with lagoons of glacial origin and an area of great biodiversity value. Three kilometres away lies the early medieval site of Cuyacabras, with 166 anthropomorphic graves and thirteen niches carved into the rock among pines and oaks. The place name Quintanar comes from the Latin quintana-ae, “farm or country house,” and it shares it with other towns such as Quintanar del Rey, in Cuenca, and Quintanar de la Orden, in Toledo.
The pine tree lottery
Historical milestone
Documented since 1288, the suerte de pinos distributes a lot of trees from the communal woodland among the residents of Quintanar de la Sierra every year, on condition that they live in the village; seven centuries later the distribution still takes place. It is a privilege of communal possession of the forest that goes back to the medieval charters of settlement granted to encourage people to settle in the Pinares area, where the altitude and rugged terrain prevent cereal farming and the inhabitants have lived almost entirely off the income from the woodland. The area, split between the provinces of Burgos and Soria, covers close to 100,000 hectares of Scots pine and black pine, with pockets of beech, oak, juniper and Portuguese oak, and its fair distribution has helped preserve the forest.
Resin-tappers and pitch-makers
Curiosity
The resinero tapped the pine from March to November and collected the resin in clay pots; the peguero cooked the stumps to draw off pitch with which boats were caulked and the legs of livestock were splinted.
The rock-cut necropolis of Cuyacabras
Nature
Three kilometres from the village, an outcrop of sandstone holds 166 anthropomorphic tombs and thirteen niches cut into the rock, some on vertical ledges. Beside it, the Cueva Andrés preserves a horseshoe arch carved in stone.
The caldereta and ajo arriero of the pinariegos
Food and drink
The stews that the men of the woodland ate are still the cooking of the sierra: the lamb caldereta cooked in the pine wood itself and the ajo arriero, potato and cod pounded with garlic and dried pepper.
The mículas and mansarones mushrooms
Food and drink
The pine woods give a notable mushroom harvest: mículas, as the saffron milk cap is called here, spring mansarones and boletus, russulas and milk caps that in autumn fill baskets and frying pans across all the pine-wood villages.