Belorado

Overview

Belorado is a town of about 1,800 people in eastern Burgos province, sitting at 772 metres in the foothills of the Sierra de la Demanda on the Camino Francés. Walking west, it is the first sizeable municipality in Castile and León that the route reaches, which is why its tourist office does more pilgrim-handling than a town this size would otherwise need.

The town sits roughly at the midpoint of the long stretch from Nájera to Burgos, about 85 km end to end, with Villamayor del Río 4.7 km behind and Tosantos 4.8 km ahead. By road it is 48 km from Burgos and 67 km from Logroño, on the N-120.

What you actually get on the ground is a 16th-century arcaded Plaza Mayor with a plainly Castilian profile, a ruined castle keep on the rock above the church of Santa María, and three hermit caves cut into the same cliff. None of it takes long. The reason to give Belorado more than a coffee stop is stranger: a disused grain silo on the edge of town now holds a radiocommunication museum with a full-scale First World War trench dug beside it.

Farmland does the rest of the work. Wheat and pulses dominate the fields, and there are two leather factories. The Río Tirón, an Ebro tributary that rises in the Sierra de la Demanda, waters the market gardens along the valley floor and gives the town its two edible calling cards: the caparrón, a short round red bean, and onions, garlic, peppers and leeks from the huerta beliforana.

History

The oldest evidence here is Celtic. Excavation at the La Muela site has produced coins, ceramics and tool handles worked from deer and roe deer antler, dated from the 4th century BC to the 1st century AD. A later Roman settlement at La Mesa, occupied from the 1st to the 5th century AD, yielded pottery, loom weights, millstones, column bases and a run of funerary stelae cut from large alluvial quartzite blocks, an unusual material that is part of why the collection matters.

The castle went up around the 9th century as a strongpoint on the shifting line between Navarre and Castile, on the rock overlooking the church of Santa María. The pilgrim traffic arrived in the 11th century, when Sancho III el Mayor rerouted the road to Santiago through the town; bridges and hospitals for pilgrims followed.

In 1116 Alfonso I el Batallador granted Belorado its fuero, the charter that set up municipal self-government and licensed a fair described as the oldest documented in the history of Castile and León. The town still marks it: the Feria Alfonsina runs on the first weekend of June.

A Jewish community held aljama status in Belorado from the 11th to the 15th century, with its own judges and tax collectors and periods of tax exemption. Its quarter was the barrio called El Corro, below the castle.

Then the decline. The civil war between Pedro I and Enrique II wrecked the town, and the expulsion decrees emptied a good part of what was left. Through the early modern period Belorado belonged to the señorío of the Condestables de Castilla, and the families who did well out of it left 18th-century coats of arms still visible on two houses, one on Calle Mayor and one on the main square.

The 20th century added the silo, built for state grain storage and later abandoned, and the museum that now occupies it. The population has kept falling; the Camino is what still brings numbers through the square.

Visiting

Start at the tourist office at Plaza Mayor 1, open daily from 10:00 to 14:30 and 16:00 to 18:00 on the town’s own listing. Note that the regional tourism board publishes different, seasonally split hours for the same office, so ring +34 947 580 815 if your timing is tight. This is where credentials get stamped and where the Roman stelae sit.

The square itself is 16th century and porticoed, and the arcades are the reason the market and the fiestas both work in bad weather. Two heraldic houses face onto it and Calle Mayor.

Walk up from the square to the church of Santa María, 16th century, and carry on to the castle above it. What survives is the keep and the view over the valley. In the same cliff face are the caves of San Caprasio, San Valentín and Santa Pía, Visigothic-era hermit cells cut into the rock.

The Convento de Santa María de Bretonera is an enclosed Poor Clare house and the church is open to visitors. The nuns run a chocolate workshop, hand-made truffles, bonbons, chocolate rocks with wafer and orange sticks, sold at the monastery and in shops in town.

The Museo Internacional de Radiocomunicación Inocencio Bocanegra is at Avenida Campo de los Deportes 18, in the restored silo. The route runs through built sets rather than glass cases: a Checkpoint Charlie reconstruction with a stretch of Friedrichstrasse, an M-60 Patton tank, a section of the Titanic boat deck with the Marconi room and the radio operators’ cabin, and a Vietnam-era MASH helicopter post with a Bell HU-10 donated through the army in Burgos.

The trench is the part people come for. It is a full-scale First World War reconstruction with dormitory, kitchen, field hospital, command post and control station, and the museum bills it as the only one in Spain and the largest in Europe. Standard entry is €7.50, reduced €6.00 for pilgrims, students, over-65s and groups of ten or more, €5.00 for local residents and school groups, free under six.

Belorado’s municipality also takes in Puras de Villafranca, which has two things worth the detour. The mining complex worked from 1799 to 1965, was listed as a cultural heritage site in 2011, and is visitable by reservation with a minimum of eight people. The Cueva de Fuentemolinos runs over 4 km on three stacked levels with an underground river below, cut into Oligocene conglomerate rather than the usual limestone.

Tips

• Book the museum before you arrive, not on the day. Tours go at 12:00 and 16:00 and need six paying people; if no group forms, an exclusive visit costs €40 for the whole tour, which is worth splitting between two or three of you.

• A 12:00 museum tour does not fit a normal Camino morning. If you want the trench, plan to sleep two nights or arrive the previous afternoon in time for the 16:00 slot.

• Get your credential stamped at the tourist office rather than at an albergue: the office uses the replica of the town’s 13th-century seal.

• Ask for caparrones at lunch, not dinner. The local red bean is short and round rather than kidney-shaped, and the town’s morcilla is made with rice, blood, onion, pork lard and pepper.

• Time a visit to the first weekend of September if you can. The Fiestas de Gracias include El Arranque and the Danza de Belorado, eight dancers plus the Cachibirrio, a grotesque figure who directs them, and a floral offering at Santa María followed by a procession to the Ermita de Belén.

• Other dates worth knowing: the Feria Alfonsina on the first weekend of June, the Cebolla Rock festival on the first weekend of August, San Vitores on 26 August and the Virgen de Belén on 25 January. Beds are scarce on the September weekend, so book well ahead.

• Driving in, the N-120 does the work from either direction: 48 km from Burgos, 67 km from Logroño via the A-12. From Bilbao take the AP-68 to Haro and pick up the N-120 there.

• Bus timetables change often and there is no station. The town publishes current public transport schedules as downloadable files and advises confirming times with the operators directly.