Aguilar de Campoo: what to see, where to stay and eat

Aguilar de Campoo lies on the A-67 motorway between Palencia and Santander: 99 km from Palencia and 102 km from Santander. By rail, Aguilar de Campoo station, which is actually in the village of Camesa de Valdivia, is served by Renfe's long-distance Alvia trains. The bus station is on Avenida de Ronda, with services to Palencia.

A day in Aguilar de Campoo lets you visit the monastery of Santa María la Real, a former Premonstratensian house with a museum devoted to Romanesque art; climb to the castle; stroll round the Plaza Mayor and the collegiate church of San Miguel; see the church of Santa Cecilia; and track down the six surviving town gates, including the Reinosa gate with its Hebrew inscription. Round off the day on the Puente Mayor and along the Pisuerga, or out at the Aguilar reservoir.

In the 1960s Aguilar de Campoo had five biscuit factories (Gullón, Fontaneda, Ruvil, Tefe and Fontibre), and nine out of ten biscuits eaten in Spain came from the town. Today Aguilar is still home to Galletas Gullón's plants and a Grupo Siro factory, so biscuit-making remains the backbone of the local economy.

Only partly. Aguilar de Campoo is one of the ten municipalities in the Montaña Palentina Natural Park, but the park covers just the hills in the north of the municipality; the town itself lies outside. Since 2017 the municipality has also been part of the Las Loras UNESCO Global Geopark, the first in Castilla y León.