Berlanga de Duero

Perched on a hill above the village and the Escalote River, the Castle is an impressive fortified complex that illustrates the evolution of Spanish military architecture from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The site first held a Muslim fortress in the 10th–11th centuries, later expanded in the 12th century with the outer defensive wall that still encircles the hill at its base. Between 1460 and 1480, Luis de Tovar and María de Guzmán ordered the construction of the late-medieval seigneurial castle, designed both as a defensive stronghold and as a noble residence overlooking the old walled town. This inner castle has a rectangular ground plan with a circular tower at one corner, a prominent keep at the opposite side, and two interior courtyards, including a porticoed palatial patio with Gothic columns and a central cistern. In 1512 a new artillery fortress was begun, wrapping around the medieval core with massive stone walls up to five metres thick, angular bastions and casemates adapted to the hill’s steep topography and to the needs of gunpowder warfare. The wider monumental ensemble includes the ruined Renaissance palace of the Dukes of Frías and the 12th-century curtain wall, partially restored in recent conservation campaigns.

The Collegiate Church of Santa María del Mercado is the main religious monument of Berlanga de Duero and a key example of 16th‑century Castilian ecclesiastical architecture. Built ex novo between roughly 1526 and 1530 on the initiative of Íñigo Fernández de Velasco and María de Tovar, it replaced an older church on the same dedication and was designed by architect Juan de Rasines at a reported cost of 30,000 ducats. The spacious interior has three wide naves, a transept, an apse and eight lateral chapels arranged around the arms and head of the church, lit by elongated Gothic windows and semicircular arches above the chapels. Eight main columns in two orders separate the naves, while twelve half‑embedded brick columns mark the cruciform layout and frame the side chapels. The polygonal main chapel occupies the full width of the central nave and half of the side naves, pierced by a series of arches that form the presbytery. Beneath the high altarpiece lies the tomb of the first Marquis of Berlanga, while other arches contain further burials of this noble house and notable prelates, including the bishops of Coria and Panama. Declared a historic‑artistic monument in 1931, it is now protected as a cultural heritage site.

Stands at the foot of the castle hill, facing the Plaza del Mercado, and preserves its monumental Renaissance façade as a powerful evocation of the noble past of Berlanga de Duero. Built in the 16th century as the main residence of the lords and later marquesses of Berlanga, it originally formed a large complex with two corner towers, a central Doric-columned courtyard and a broad entrance atrium opening onto the square. From this terrace, twin stairways descended to the plaza while a ramp allowed carriages to reach the principal floor from behind, underlining the palace’s ceremonial and residential function. Inside were a chapel-oratory dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, spacious living quarters and extensive terraced gardens adorned with statues, fountains and baths, irrigated by a waterwheel that lifted water over 120 feet. Severely damaged by fire during the Peninsular War, the palace lost its interiors but retained the long ashlar façade with three storeys and an upper gallery, as well as the great Tovar family coat of arms bearing the Latin motto “Sapientia aedificabis sibi domus et prudentia roborabitur”. Declared a historic-artistic monument in 1980, it is now protected as a cultural asset.

A pillory ("Rollo") is a column, usually made of stone and typically topped with a cross or an orb. It represented the administrative status of a place, being erected only in towns with full jurisdiction, indicating the regime to which it was subject: royal, municipal, ecclesiastical, or monastic. It also marked the territorial boundary and, in some cases, served as a commemorative monument for the granting of town status. Pilloryes shared the function of executions with pillories. These executions were suspended by decree of the Cortes of Cádiz in 1812.

It is located in the old slaughterhouse and features pieces belonging to different churches in the town, as well as a series of explanatory panels, models and an audiovisual presentation to show the splendor lost in the Hermitage of San Baudelio due to the plundering of the paintings through a virtual reconstruction of what the hermitage would have looked like in its origins.

9 km away from Berlanga de Duero, in Casillas de Berlanga, is the hermitage of San Baudelio, one of the best examples of Mozarabic architecture on the Peninsula.

Can be done by car, bicycle or walking. It goes through Berlanga.