History
The Wool Road: Castles, Shepherds & the Mesta
The Lana doesn't tell its story with easy pictures. It's a thread stretched between the heart of medieval Spain and its legends — a path walked by shepherds and wool merchants, fought over by armies, and remembered in poems and films.
A road made of sheep
This was a route of the great transhumance: vast flocks of merino sheep moving between summer and winter pastures, and with them the wool trade that made medieval Castile rich. You walk long stretches of the Cañada Real de las Merinas — one of Spain's great drove roads, wide, of beaten earth, watched over by eight centuries of sheep. The famous merino fleece travelled these paths to market; the road still carries the name of the wool.
Castles on every horizon
Where there was wealth, there were walls. You'll pass watchtowers, fortified towns and great castles: Sigüenza, fortified in the 12th century and today a Parador; Atienza on its rock; the dramatic ruin of Caracena above its canyon. These were stages for the ambitions of kings, bishops and feudal lords — and, much later, scenes of the Civil War.
Where history and legend meet
This is El Cid country, and Don Quixote country too. In the empty villages, the old stories of the transhumance, the merchants and the medieval frontier are still alive in spoken memory. Pull an elderly neighbour gently by the sleeve and ask — and you'll hear them firsthand.