Logbook · 4 places

What to see and do in Santa María la Real de Nieva

What to see and do in Santa María la Real de Nieva (Comunidad de Ciudad y Tierra de Segovia, Segovia): 4 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Santa María la Real de Nieva

Portal of the monastery of la Soterraña 50 m

Towns near Santa María la Real de Nieva

What to see in Nieva 2 km · 1 place
What to see in Ortigosa de Pestaño 2.1 km · 1 place
What to see in Domingo García 5.5 km · 3 places
What to see in Melque de Cercos 5.7 km · 1 place
What to see in Migueláñez 6.7 km · 1 place
What to see in Armuña 7.4 km · 1 place
What to see in Bernardos 7.9 km · 3 places
What to see in Añe 9.9 km · 1 place

Spain › Castile and León › Segovia › Comunidad de Ciudad y Tierra de Segovia › Santa María la Real de Nieva

What to see and do in Santa María la Real de Nieva

Santa María la Real de Nieva
Village
Santa María la Real de Nieva is a town in the Segovian countryside, between Segovia and Arévalo, with about 906 inhabitants, founded in 1395 by Henry III at the intercession of his wife Catherine of Lancaster. Its origin is due to the finding, three years earlier, of a carved image of the Virgin buried on the hill where the town stands; it was decided to build there a sanctuary and a settlement, declared a tax-exempt town, which allowed the establishment of cloth, ceramic and threshing-sledge workshops. In 1441 Queen Blanche I of Navarre died there while passing through, and was buried in the main chapel of the church of the monastery of Nuestra Señora de la Soterraña, which preserves a cloister with carved capitals and a doorway declared a monument in 1920. Its plaza de toros, from 1848, is among the oldest in Spain.
The founding by Catalina de Lancaster
Historical milestone
In 1392 Queen Catalina de Lancaster ordered a church to be raised on the spot where a shepherd had found the image of the Virgen de la Soterraña, not far from the hamlet of Nieva; around the sanctuary the present town was born.
Cloister of the eighty-seven capitals
Monument
Although it was raised in the fifteenth century, the cloister repeats the scheme of a late Romanesque one, with paired columns and slightly pointed arches. Its 87 capitals and 40 corbels form a carved medieval calendar: sowing, harvest, grape picking and the pig slaughter.
Portal of the monastery of la Soterraña
Monument
The doorway of the monastery church is considered, along with the cloister, one of the capital references of fifteenth-century Castilian Gothic sculpture, with a carving more naturalistic and anecdotal than that of the Romanesque models it imitates.