San Esteban de Gormaz

People have lived here since prehistory — a Bronze Age axe dated to around 900 BC is the earliest evidence. The town stood at the crossroads of several Celtiberian routes, later attracting Roman and Arab settlement. The Arabs built its castle when the place was still called Castromoro, and the town changed hands repeatedly over roughly two hundred years of frontier warfare between Moorish and Christian forces before passing definitively to Castile.

Despite the fighting, the town grew. At its medieval peak it held around 3,000 inhabitants, four parishes and two monasteries outside the walls, and in 1187 hosted the first Cortes of Castile. Alfonso X visited twice and immortalised the town in his Cantigas de Santa María, one of which tells the legend of the Vado de Cascajar. The Catholic Monarchs granted the town a bread-price privilege in 1504.

Decline followed. By the mid-nineteenth century the population had fallen to around 800. A railway line connecting the area to the national network opened in 1895 but closed to passengers in 1985. The municipality expanded considerably in 1966 and again in 1972 by absorbing surrounding villages, and a later industrialisation project eventually brought the population back toward its historic levels.

San Esteban has two Romanesque churches, San Miguel and the Virgen del Rivero, both with notable porticoed galleries. A medieval castle overlooks the town, and a medieval bridge crosses the Duero. Other sites include a Romanesque Theme Park, and the Ecomuseo Molino de los Ojos.