Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Ledesma

What to see and do in Ledesma (Tierra de Ledesma, Salamanca): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Ledesma

The historic ensemble of the town of Ledesma 300 m
The Puente Mocho 3.1 km

Towns near Ledesma

Spain › Castile and León › Salamanca › Tierra de Ledesma › Ledesma

What to see and do in Ledesma

Ledesma
Village
Ledesma is the most important centre of northern Salamanca province and the service hub of the Tierra de Ledesma; since 2018 it has belonged to Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España. Its town centre, with around 1,480 inhabitants, sits on a granite outcrop at 780 metres of altitude, next to the Zamoran comarca of Sayago, with which it shares landscape and traditions. It was probably a prehistoric hillfort before becoming, under Roman rule, Bletis, the name from which the current one derives; its definitive repopulation came in 1161, when Ferdinand II of León granted it a charter. Declared a historic-artistic site in 1975, it preserves walls, a fortress, the Puente Mocho and the churches of Santa Elena and Santa María la Mayor. Fleeing the town in 1812, the French blew up the second arch of its bridge.
The historic ensemble of the town of Ledesma
Monument
The walled enclosure and the buildings surrounding it were declared a historic-artistic ensemble in 1975: hidalgo palaces from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the hospital of San José and the granary of Bishop Pedro del Campo, on a granite outcrop at 780 metres.
The fortress of Ledesma
Monument
Fernando II of León had it built in the last third of the twelfth century with a trapezoidal plan; Beltrán and Francisco de la Cueva, Counts of Ledesma, remodelled it in the fifteenth. It preserves two towers on the south front and two superimposed Gothic chambers.
The gate of San Nicolás
Monument
It is the only survivor of the wall's eight gates and was declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico (Spain's heritage designation in force between 1931 and 1985) in 1949. Built in the last third of the 12th century, it consists of two cylindrical towers flanking an entrance of two stilted barrel arches.
The Puente Mocho
Monument
The Puente Mocho bridge crosses the ribera de Cañedo to the north of the municipality of Ledesma (Salamanca), and was declared a site of cultural interest on 29 June 2000. It is one of the surviving testimonies of the ancient Bletisa, a Lusitanian city on the northern frontier of the Roman province: its construction has repeatedly been attributed to Roman times, owing to the remains of a road associated with it, part of the route between Ledesma and Zamora (Bletisama-Ocelo Dori). In its current fabric, however, it appears on the whole to be a medieval work, with cutwaters of the modern era. It has five round arches, the central one larger, four triangular cutwaters upstream, 71 metres in length and a maximum height of 5.70 metres; on both banks stretches of paved road survive.
The charter of Ferdinand II
Historical milestone
Fernando II of León granted the town its charter in 1161 and with it completed its definitive resettlement, turning it into a political and economic centre of the kingdom whose alfoz came to extend from Salamanca to the border with Portugal.
The verracos thrown into the river
Curiosity
At the Puerta de los Toros there were four stone verracos chained together. In the 1840s the town council threw them into the river in a liberal outburst, seeing in the chains a symbol of the punishment inflicted by Carlos V after the Comunidades.