Logbook · 3 places

What to see and do in Respenda de la Peña

What to see and do in Respenda de la Peña (Montaña Palentina, Palencia): 3 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Food and drink

Towns near Respenda de la Peña

Spain › Castile and León › Palencia › Montaña Palentina › Respenda de la Peña

What to see and do in Respenda de la Peña

Respenda de la Peña
Village
Respenda de la Peña, in the Montaña Palentina, spreads out at 1,015 metres beside the sierra del Brezo, in a valley watered by the río Valdavia that separates páramos de rañas from Pyrenean-oak groves. In 1842 the constitutional municipality numbered barely 151 residents, but it went on annexing neighbouring localities until it reached, around 1900, more than 3,600 inhabitants across an extensive municipal area; in 1934 Santibáñez de la Peña became independent, taking a good part of those villages with it, and the population suddenly dropped to just over a thousand. Today, with around 140 inhabitants of a very advanced age, the municipality groups together seven settlements — among them Baños de la Peña, Barajores, Fontecha, Riosmenudos de la Peña, Santana and Vega de Riacos — of which Santana and Baños de la Peña preserve Romanesque-Gothic doorways.
Church of la Inmaculada Concepción de Respenda
Monument
It rises above the houses of the village, in a valley that has the Sierra del Brezo as a backdrop, and marks the profile of this settlement on the boundary between the mountains and the moors of the upper Carrión.
Palencia-style vegetable stew
Food and drink
A stew of seasonal vegetables sautéed with ham that took hold in the province from the post-war years until it became one of its most recognisable dishes; it is made with the vegetables from the huerta plots of the valley.