Logbook · 9 places

What to see and do in Yanguas

What to see and do in Yanguas (Tierras Altas, Soria): 9 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Activities · 2 Curiosities

How far each place is from the centre of Yanguas

The historic ensemble of Yanguas 150 m
The tower of San Miguel 600 m

Towns near Yanguas

What to see in Villar del Río 3 km · 4 places
What to see in Enciso 7.8 km · 5 places
What to see in Zarzosa 8.9 km · 5 places
What to see in Munilla 9.9 km · 7 places
What to see in Santa Cruz de Yanguas 10 km · 6 places
What to see in Vizmanos 10 km · 4 places
What to see in San Pedro Manrique 12 km · 11 places
What to see in Las Aldehuelas 12 km · 5 places

Spain › Castile and León › Soria › Tierras Altas › Yanguas

What to see and do in Yanguas

Yanguas
Village
Yanguas is the northernmost village in the province of Soria, on the border with La Rioja, situated on the left bank of the río Cidacos within the comarca of Tierras Altas, with 104 inhabitants. Of pre-Roman origin, of which remains of an earthen wall survive, it was reconquered and resettled in the Middle Ages, and the Castilian king granted its residents the privilege of not paying tolls in some cities of Castile, which spurred intense commercial activity by Yanguas muleteers so well known that Cervantes mentions them in chapter XV of the first part of Don Quixote. The decline of trade and rural abandonment since the 19th century decimated the population, although in recent years the village school has reopened. Part of the bank of the Cidacos is included in the Natura 2000 Network. Declared a historic-artistic ensemble in the 1980s, it preserves a rammed-earth castle, the Gothic church of San Lorenzo and the Río and Villa gates, remains of its wall.
The historic ensemble of Yanguas
Monument
The villa was declared a historic-artistic ensemble for the uniformity of its houses, raised with slate, rubble masonry and frames of timber and adobe around an intact medieval layout.
The tower of San Miguel
Monument
The sole remnant of a vanished church, it stands isolated on the outskirts and is considered the province's only example of Romanesque architecture in the Lombard tradition; the chronicler Garibay placed here the tomb of King Aurelio of Asturias, alongside that of his father Fruela of Cantabria. It preserves a pair of rudimentary graffiti referring to the patron of the old church of San Miguel, and it has been suggested that it may have served as an access point to a Roman settlement and as a watchtower guarding the road that linked Numantia with Calahorra.
The castle of Yanguas
Monument
A fortress that dominated the pass of the Cidacos, with curtain walls and towers that still outline the silhouette of the village; its enclosure and the gates of the Río and of the Villa are what remains of the medieval defensive system.
The chest of the four keys
Curiosity
The church of San Lorenzo, of late Gothic, guarded the chest of the municipal archive closed with four different locks: each key was in the hands of a different mayor and the chest was only opened with all of them present.
The church of Santa María
Monument
A 16th-century church, the most important of the churches of Yanguas and parish of the vanished Villa Vieja. Its chapel of the Santo Cristo is separated from the nave by a monumental grille symbolising that, just as the church belongs to the town, the chapel belongs to the whole community; it was the spiritual centre of a jurisdiction that came to group together twenty-five villages of the Tierras Altas.
The muleteers of Yanguas in Don Quixote
Curiosity
The dealers and muleteers of this villa reached such fame that Cervantes brought them into chapter XV of the first part of the Quijote, in the episode in which they beat Rocinante, don Quijote and Sancho.
The Cristo de Villa Vieja
Activity
On 16 July the villa celebrates its patron, the Santo Cristo de Villa Vieja, in a festival that brings together the descendants of the twenty-five villages that formed its old comunidad de villa y tierra.
The Cidacos as it flows through Yanguas
Nature
The river runs at 991 metres of altitude among vegetable gardens and poplar groves at the foot of the village; upstream, the surrounding hills preserve beech woods and one of the largest concentrations of yews in the Sistema Ibérico.