Territorio Artlanza, Félix Yáñez's Medieval Village

In Quintanilla del Agua, on the BU-904 between Lerma and Covarrubias, the sculptor Félix Yáñez has built with his own hands an entire medieval village, with streets, squares, facades, workshops and a church, which you walk through from the inside. It is an open-air visit, very different from the monuments of the Arlanza valley, and has an area designed for children.

How it came about

Félix Yáñez, born in 1960 and a resident of the village, is a sculptor and ceramicist: he spent about thirty years selling at craft fairs in Madrid and Castilla y León. He learned to work clay from a neighbour; his father was a builder. He began by decorating a garden wall, some arches and the facade of a porch to hide the woodsheds and garage of his workshop, and when the 2008 crisis stopped him selling ceramics at the fairs, he carried on building. As he himself tells it, the more he built, the more people came to see it.

He has done almost all of it with material salvaged from the rubble tips of the surrounding villages: posts, tiles, doors and adobe, as well as tools, utensils, antiques and old doors and balconies that people have given him. Inside the facades he has set up small museums with those tools and objects. During the 2020 lockdown he added a children's area of coloured houses, with comic characters, his own version of Burgos cathedral and buildings of the Arlanza valley, made mostly with coloured tiles.

Hours and tickets

It opens every day, including weekends and public holidays, from 10:00 to 18:00. Entry costs €10 for adults and €5 for children aged 5 to 14. The website says nothing about under-5s, so ask at the ticket office. Allow an hour and a half without rushing. As everything is outdoors, come prepared for whatever the weather is: on very windy days it may close, and they announce it on their social media. Phones: 651 100 999 and 649 129 877.

Facilities and parking

Halfway round there is a picnic area with tables, benches and bins to have something to eat. There are water, snack and coffee machines, toilets in the Felipe Segundo comedy theatre (corral de comedias) and, at the end, a shop with ceramics, souvenirs and local products. At the ticket office they have a first-aid kit for small wounds and stings. You park in the same street, C/ El Molino, 20, an area of low houses beside the swimming pools: leave the car inside the yellow line.

What to combine it with

It fits well into a day along the Arlanza with children: the village in the morning and, after lunch in Covarrubias, a stroll round the old town and collegiate church and a climb up the Fernán González tower, with its exhibition of siege engines. For lunch, on Plaza de Doña Urraca is Casa Galín.