Santo Domingo de Silos

The monastery's origins go back to a Visigothic community dedicated to Saint Sebastian, later restored under the Count Fernán González. The defining moment came around 1042, when a monk from Cañas, La Rioja, named Domingo arrived by way of San Millán and, under royal patronage from King Fernando I, set about a major Romanesque rebuilding. Of that work, the cloisters and the Puerta de las Vírgenes survive. The rest is broadly neoclassical, the result of a restoration begun in 1733 — with Ventura Rodríguez among the contributors — that fortunately ran out of funds before all the earlier fabric was lost.

The two-storey cloister courtyard, measuring 22 by 24 metres, is the centrepiece. Its double-column arcades, with four-column clusters at the centre, carry capitals of remarkable variety, several showing clear Andalusian influence. In the lower north gallery lies the tomb of Santo Domingo, marked by a recumbent effigy resting on three lions. The upper cloister is simpler and later. Ventura Rodríguez also designed the neoclassical church. Other monastic rooms include an 18th-century pharmacy with a fine collection of Talavera ceramics, and a museum holding Mozarabic and Romanesque sculpture, metalwork, enamels, and other pieces saved from the 19th-century disamortisation.

Close to the town, the La Yecla gorge offers a natural detour. About 3–4 km north, the Sad Hill Cemetery — where the final scene of *The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* was filmed — has been restored by volunteers of the Asociación Cultural Sad Hill.