Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Santa María del Monte de Cea

What to see and do in Santa María del Monte de Cea (Sahagún, León): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 2 Nature · 1 Curiosities

How far each place is from the centre of Santa María del Monte de Cea

Dehesa of Valdellán 3.4 km

Towns near Santa María del Monte de Cea

Spain › Castile and León › León › Sahagún › Santa María del Monte de Cea

What to see and do in Santa María del Monte de Cea

Santa María del Monte de Cea
Village
Santa María del Monte de Cea is a municipality of León in the comarca of Sahagún, in the lands of the Cea, made up of five small villages of adobe and Arabic tile — Santa María, Villacintor, Villamizar, Castellanos and Banecidas — which today together number about 205 inhabitants at 885 metres of altitude. It lives off dry farming and sheep farming, although today it is also a place for summer holidays for its tranquillity. On the territory of Villamizar extends the dehesa of Valdellán, with fighting bulls, and a Late Roman pottery kiln and Roman remains of Las Moralas are preserved; at Villacintor there are Renaissance murals in the church. It is a land of ageing and depopulation despite its former livestock and craft activity.
Renaissance murals of the church of Villacintor
Monument
The church of Villacintor preserves Renaissance wall paintings, an uncommon find in the churches of adobe and Arabic tile of these tiny villages on the eastern edge of the León Tierra de Campos.
Roman pottery kiln of Villamizar
Monument
In the district of Villamizar a Roman-period pottery kiln is preserved, to which are added the remains located at the spot known as Las Moralas, evidence of a dense ancient settlement on this plain.
Dehesa of Valdellán
Nature
A livestock estate of about 500 hectares in the district of Villamizar, within the municipality of Santa María del Monte de Cea, in the Sahagún area, where Cistercian monks influenced the formation of large estates like this one between the 11th and 12th centuries, something exceptional in a province of smallholdings. On its land there stood a small convent dependent on the monastery of Santa María de Sandoval; the current main house is what remains of that building, of adobe and brick, which burned down in the early 21st century, leaving standing only the bell, a painting or two, and a baptismal font. Disentailed in 1836, in the year 2000 the company Valdellán S.A. dedicated it to breeding fighting bulls, with a tienta ring and pens, an unusual use in a district dominated by cereals and sheep.
Heights of El Payuelo
Nature
The Pyrenean oak woods of the Payuelo heights crown the municipality with elevations such as La Talaya, at 964 metres, and Valdeladrones, at 989, the last patches of woodland before the cereal plain takes over towards the south.
The villages of adobe and Arab-style tile
Curiosity
Santa María, Villacintor, Villamizar, Castellanos and Banecidas are five very small settlements built entirely with adobe and roofed with curved tile, an ensemble that adds up to a little over two hundred inhabitants.