Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Santibáñez de Ecla

What to see and do in Santibáñez de Ecla (La Ojeda, Palencia): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

How far each place is from the centre of Santibáñez de Ecla

Monastery of San Andrés de Arroyo 800 m
Cloister of San Andrés de Arroyo 800 m

Towns near Santibáñez de Ecla

Spain › Castile and León › Palencia › La Ojeda › Santibáñez de Ecla

What to see and do in Santibáñez de Ecla

Santibáñez de Ecla
Village
Santibáñez de Ecla is a municipality in the La Ojeda comarca, in the province of Palencia, whose municipal area includes the hamlets of San Andrés de Arroyo and Villaescusa de Ecla. Since 2017 it has been part of the Las Loras Geopark, the first Unesco geopark in Castile and León, and it lies on the Camino Lebaniego Castellano. It safeguards the Cistercian monastery of San Andrés de Arroyo, one of the great Romanesque complexes of Palencia, and also preserves the church of San Juan, built in the early 14th century with late Romanesque elements. In the mid-19th century it had 161 inhabitants, compared with just over forty today, at 1,077 metres of altitude.
Monastery of San Andrés de Arroyo
Monument
A women's Cistercian monastery founded in 1181 by Countess Mencía López de Haro under the tutelage of the Burgos abbey of Las Huelgas, at the site of San Andrés de Arroyo, in the municipality of Santibáñez de Ecla, in the comarca of La Ojeda. The church, of Latin-cross plan with a single nave of five bays, was consecrated in 1222 and retains a late Romanesque portal; the cloister, with pointed arches on paired columns, is the finest piece in the complex, and the chapter house holds the sarcophagi of the first two abbesses. Declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico Nacional (a former national heritage designation, later folded into the Bien de Interés Cultural) on 3 June 1931 and restored in 1958, it remains home to one of the largest enclosed communities in Spain, which keeps a guesthouse and sells pastries. The church, cloister and chapter house can be visited.
Cloister of San Andrés de Arroyo
Monument
Its timidly pointed arches rest on slender paired columns and the corner capitals unfold a plant filigree with zigzag bands and six-petalled flowers, the peak of Romanesque carving in Palencia.
Founding of San Andrés de Arroyo
Historical milestone
Countess Mencía López de Haro, daughter of the Lord of Biscay, founded the monastery in 1181 and brought it into the Cistercian order; its abbess came to exercise civil and criminal jurisdiction over the surrounding villages.
Sweets of the Cistercian nuns of Arroyo
Food and drink
The community of enclosed nuns of the monastery makes and sells pastries and preserves, an artisanal activity that sustains the house and keeps alive the convent confectionery of northern Palencia.