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The Duero en Soria route |
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The Camino del Cid, the Los Reyes and Jauna la Loca, are amongst the routes named after famous people in this area. The landscape which raises up to the Los Picos de Urbión and where the river Duero starts between narrow valleys and lush forests of pine, beach and oak. This region is full of traditional popular architecture with quaint pine fireplaces.
On our route we will see the impressive Los Picos de Urbión area, which consists of a spectacular rugged mountain range, with narrow valleys and a wealth of flora and fauna. Within the mountains there are abundant glacial formations, first and foremost being the La Laguna Negra (the black lagoon), situated at a spectacular height of 2,000 meters, between vertical walls of granite and pine trees. The lagoon has many many legends, such as the one told by Antonio Machado - where one of the sons who assassinated his father then hurled his body into the lagoon thinking it was bottomless. We begin our itinerary in Duero de la Sierra, the ancient county of Lara and the nobleman Fernán González. In this area we find the 16th century church of San Miguel and the curious medieval sepulchres of human forms carved in rock.. Taking the SO-850 road we go on to Coveleda, a locality situated on the outskirts of Urbión. Here there is a medieval bridge, a 16th -17th century Gothic church, Celtic - Iberian remains of the Paseo de los Arrieros wall and the sepulchres of Onsar de Pedro Garcia in interesting anthropomorphist shapes. From Covaleda, continuing on the same road we arrive at Molinos de Duero, which was the important centre of the Carreterias Reales de Castilla during the 18th century. Here there is a 16th century church which houses an interesting collection of altarpieces. We take the SO-840 road on to Vinuesa where we find a 17th century church which has a valued collection of Baroque altarpieces, as well as the Los Ramos house, the former palace of the Marquees de Vilueña and a variety of stately homes and country houses. We rejoin the road until El Royo and then take a detour to Hinojosa de la Sierra, an ideal place for lovers of water sports. The principle monuments here are the 16th century renaissance palace - Los Hurtado de Mendoza and the renaissance church. We then carry on our journey to Garay on the SO-801, where we can visit the 8th century Roman hermitage of Los Santos Mártires and the ruins of the ancient Celtic-Iberian town of Numancia. We finish our journey on the N-122, arriving in the lovely town of Soria , this small town has a wealth of cultural heritage, history and art. Here we can see the ruins of the San Nicolás church, which preserves the remains of paintings which represent the martyr Thomas Becket, as well as the Santa Domingo church - which was declared a recognised part of Spain's cultural heritage by UNESCO, as well as the renaissance style Count of Gomara palace which has a lovely interior patio, the San Pedro cathedral, the Madres Carmeltos convent, the cloister of San Juan de Duero and the ancient monastery of the Orden de los Templarios . At 7km from Soria we find the Numancia ruins, the Byzantine - Gothic style church of San Juan de Rabanera and the lovely ancient clock in the Plaza Mayor. |
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