Logbook · 8 places

What to see and do in Villalba de los Alcores

What to see and do in Villalba de los Alcores (Montes Torozos, Valladolid): 8 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

How far each place is from the centre of Villalba de los Alcores

Monastery of Santa María de Matallana 4.2 km

Towns near Villalba de los Alcores

Spain › Castile and León › Valladolid › Montes Torozos › Villalba de los Alcores

What to see and do in Villalba de los Alcores

Villalba de los Alcores
Village
Villalba de los Alcores is a town of the Montes Torozos, in the province of Valladolid, with about 380 inhabitants, on the upper edge of the district, surrounded by holm oaks and Pyrenean oaks. Repopulated after the Reconquest by people from the north under the Kingdom of León, already in the 11th century it belonged to Castile as a royal town. At the end of the 12th century, Alfonso Téllez de Meneses received Villalba from Alfonso VIII and there began the monastery of Santa María de Matallana, the walls and the castle; because of its position on the frontier, the town was the scene of the struggles between León and Castile and, in the 13th century, of the siege by Álvaro Núñez de Lara. It preserves that castle of the Hospitallers and the Menesess, the Romanesque-Cistercian church of Santa María del Templo and the deserted village of Fuenteungrillo.
Monastery of Santa María de Matallana
Monument
The monastery, founded around 1185 by Tello Pérez de Meneses and his wife Gontrodo García thanks to a donation from Alfonso VIII of Castile, stands north of Villalba de los Alcores, where the Tierra de Campos meets the Montes Torozos. The church, from the 14th century, was built following the model of the Monastery of las Huelgas in Burgos, of which the perimeter wall and the bases of its pillars, still standing, are a good example. The ruins of the monastery were declared a National Monument in 1931. After the monks were expelled in the 19th century, the complex was used as a hospital for workers of the Canal de Castilla, then as a quarry, and ended up converted into a farming estate. In 1975 the land passed to the Diputación de Valladolid, which between 1995 and 2005 restored the guesthouse and the wine cellar and renovated a circular dovecote. Today it functions as a Nature Interpretation Centre.
Castle and walls of Villalba de los Alcores
Monument
A fortress ordered built in the late 12th century by Alfonso Téllez de Meneses, from the same lineage that founded Matallana. Strengthened in the last third of the 15th century by the Count of Benavente, who rebuilt the towers destroyed during the siege by which he took the town, the wall came to have thirty-six ashlar towers of near-circular plan, and opened outward through two gates: the Puerta de Abajo, beside the church of Santiago Apóstol, and the Puerta de Arriba, facing the hermitage of the Santo Cristo del Humilladero. Of the medieval wall, seven towers survive today scattered through the town's layout, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1993, although their use as hay barns, garages or dwellings has badly damaged them.
Holm oak and Portuguese oak groves of Torozos
Nature
Of the ancient forest that covered the moorland there survive patches of holm oak and Portuguese oak, the two species that define the woodland of Torozos. These stands still sustain a notable Mediterranean fauna and explain the place name of alcores, the gentle ridges of the moorland.
The adobe dovecotes of Matallana
Curiosity
In the grounds of Matallana two dovecotes have been restored, one circular and one square, examples of the most characteristic construction of the Torozos: adobe walls that hide an inner courtyard lined with nesting boxes, topped by brick cornices.
Matallana Nature Interpretation Centre
Monument
The ruins of the Cistercian monastery today host a centre with an exhibition of local fauna and flora, a garden of aromatic plants, restored dovecotes, a small lagoon, a greenhouse and nursery, an environmental path and a children's theme park.
The founding of Matallana
Historical milestone
In 1185 Tello Pérez de Meneses and his wife Gontrodo García founded the Cistercian monastery of Santa María de Matallana. The same lineage raised the castle of the town, turning these moorlands into one of the most powerful lordships of the plateau.
Sheep's cheeses of the Torozos
Food and drink
The churra sheep that gives the lechazo also gives the milk with which the cured cheeses of the comarca are made. In Villalba de los Alcores there has been cheese and dairy activity documented since 1960, alongside the bakery and the cereals that sustain the village.