Medina de Pomar

The town's name carries two roots: *medina*, Arabic for "city," brought by the Mozarab communities who lived here, and *pomar*, Latin for "apple orchard." Together they mean, roughly, "city of the apple trees."

For centuries Medina belonged to the Crown. The 1352 Castilian land register, the *Becerro de las Behetrías*, records plainly that "this place belongs to the King and has always belonged to the kings." That changed on Christmas Eve 1369, when Enrique II of Trastámara rewarded his chief chamberlain, Pedro Fernández de Velasco, with lordship over the town — payment for services during the civil war against his half-brother Pedro I. The grant was confirmed by Juan I at the Cortes of Burgos in 1379 and again by Enrique III at the Cortes of Madrid in 1393. The original lordship document is held in the Museo Histórico de Las Merindades, inside the Velasco castle.

The Velasco family's growing power eventually worked against the town. In 1562, Philip II ordered the regional court and chief magistracy to move to nearby Villarcayo, which has been the comarca capital ever since.

Medina passed through each category of Spanish civic rank — royal town, lordship, *villa*, and finally *ciudad*. In 1496, Queen Isabella the Catholic and her daughter Juana passed through on their way to Laredo, where the Infanta would sail to marry Philip the Handsome. The historic centre was declared a national Historic-Artistic Monument on 7 June 1973, formalised by decree in the *BOE* on 26 June of the same year.

The most prominent building in Medina is the Alcázar de los Condestables — known locally as Las Torres — which sits at the southwestern corner of the old walled enclosure and now houses the Museo Histórico de Las Merindades. Pedro Fernández de Velasco ordered its construction during the reign of Enrique II. The title of Constable of Castile would not come to the family until 1473, granted by Enrique IV to Pedro Fernández de Velasco y Manrique, grandson of the town's first lord. Inside, the central body of the castle contains a large great hall reached by a spiral staircase, with an original fireplace and stone stairwell shaft still intact. The south tower holds the noble salon, where a Mudéjar frieze runs along the walls — a band of medallions, lobed forms, and interlaced Velasco heraldry, with inscriptions in African and Kufic Arabic characters. That room is now used for conferences, summer courses, and weddings. The north tower, plainer and probably used by garrison troops and household staff, sits above the municipal archive. The Dukes of Frías handed the castle to the town council in usufruct in 1896; it was restored in the 1990s and opened as a museum in November 2001.

The Monastery of Santa Clara, to the south of the city near the old Hospital de la Vera Cruz and the hermitage of San Millán, was founded by Sancho Sánchez de Velasco and his wife Sancha García by deed signed in Baeza on 11 January 1313. It has housed a community of Poor Clares for all seven centuries since, and was declared a *Bien de Interés Cultural* on 2 April 1992. It contains a church, the Velasco family pantheon, and the Museo de los Condestables, and also operates a guesthouse.

Elsewhere in the old town, the Church of Santa Cruz stands at the top of the hill against the ancient walls and holds a late-Gothic altarpiece dedicated to St John the Baptist, along with the tombs of the Salinas family and of Pedro Ontañón, ambassador to the Catholic Monarchs. The hermitage of San Millán houses a Romanesque museum. The wider municipality — 19 parishes and 17 districts — is scattered with Romanesque churches, defensive towers, manor houses, and archaeological sites including the Roman complex at Salinas de Rosío.

Medina de Pomar is 77 km from Bilbao, 88 km from Burgos, 8 km from Villarcayo, and around 20 km from Espinosa de los Monteros. Buses run from both Bilbao and Burgos. The town centre is easy on foot, but a bicycle — ideally a mountain bike — suits the sights and surrounding countryside better.

Thirst is unlikely to be a problem: the town has around 100 bars, roughly one for every 30 inhabitants.