Go into the Botica de los Jimeno and look at a 17th-century pharmacy still fitted out as it was

Find the Gothic rollo in the middle of the square and work out what a jurisdictional pillar was for

Go into the Palacio de Avellaneda and find the carved coffered ceilings

Climb to the castle, originally built by Fernán González in the 10th century

Work out why a village this size has a square and a palace on this scale

Fernán González built a castle here in the 10th century as part of the repopulation, and it was completely rebuilt in the 15th. Below it the Plaza Mayor holds the Palacio de Avellaneda and, in the middle of the square, a Gothic rollo — the jurisdictional pillar that marked a town's right to administer justice — protected since 3 June 1931. The other thing to find is the Botica de los Jimeno, a 17th-century pharmacy still fitted out as it was, with its jars and its dispensary, now a museum and protected since 20 March 2007.

Peñaranda de Duero: A Renaissance Palace and a 17th-Century Pharmacy

Sit in the theatre cut into the rock, among the largest in Roman Hispania

Work out what happened here during the revolt against Nero and what Galba learned in this city

Find out where the epithet Sulpicia came from and who confirmed the colony's status

Walk the forum and the houses and work out the scale of the conventus this place administered

Find the underground galleries and the spring the city was built over

Clunia was founded from nothing under Tiberius and became one of the most important cities in the northern half of Hispania, capital of the Conventus Cluniensis in Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis, on the road from Tarraco to Asturica Augusta. Its moment came during the revolt against Nero: Sulpicius Galba took refuge here, heard in this city that Nero was dead and that he himself had been chosen emperor, and proclaimed himself. The colony took his family name — Clunia Sulpicia. Its theatre, cut into the rock, is one of the largest in Roman Hispania.

Clunia: Where Galba Learned He Was Emperor

Tour the underground bodegas beneath Aranda de Duero's centre, the interconnected wine cellars of the capital of the Ribera del Duero

Eat lechazo, the roast suckling lamb of the region, at an Aranda asador

See the Isabelline façade of the Church of Santa María la Real, and the Gothic Church of San Juan

There are somewhere over a hundred wine cellars cut into the rock under Aranda de Duero, dug between the 12th and 18th centuries, seven to twelve metres down and connected to each other — a second town underneath the first, kept at a constant temperature, where the whole population stored its wine. Several are open. Above ground the other thing Aranda does is lechazo: milk-fed lamb roasted in a wood-fired clay oven, which in Castile is taken with complete seriousness.

Aranda de Duero: Underground Bodegas and Lechazo

Walk the cloister and work out that it survived because the community could not afford to rebuild it

Look at the carved capitals and the corner reliefs, which are the reason it is called a masterpiece

Go to an office and hear the community sing Gregorian chant, which is a daily thing here and not a performance

Find the surviving fragments of the Romanesque church — the south transept arm and the Puerta de las Vírgenes

Work out how far back the documentation goes: a charter of 954 in the monastery's own archive

A document of 954 in the monastery archive is the first mention of San Sebastián de Silos. Under Domingo, made abbot in the 11th century, a Romanesque church of three naves and five apses was consecrated in 1088 and the cloister was built. The Baroque period demolished the church and replaced it with what stands now; the cloister survived only because the money ran out. It is one of the masterpieces of Spanish Romanesque, and the monks still sing the office in Gregorian chant, which is the other reason to be here.

Santo Domingo de Silos: The Cloister and the Chant

Go into the cathedral begun in 1232 and find the tomb of San Pedro de Osma

Ask about the Beatus of Osma, illuminated in 1086, and work out what a Beatus manuscript is

Walk the arcaded main street and the surviving walls

Drive up to the Cañón del Río Lobos and find the Templar chapel of San Bartolomé in the bottom of it

Count griffon vultures on the canyon walls, which hold one of the larger colonies in Spain

El Burgo de Osma is a walled town on the Ucero with a Gothic cathedral begun in 1232 on a Romanesque predecessor, a Baroque tower added in the 18th century, and a chapter library holding one of the great medieval manuscripts in Spain — the Beatus of Osma, a copy of the Commentary on the Apocalypse, illuminated in 1086. The town also has an 18th-century university building and an arcaded main street. Up the valley is the Cañón del Río Lobos, where griffon vultures nest on the cliffs above a Templar chapel.

El Burgo de Osma: A Cathedral Town on the Ucero

Walk up the canyon from Ucero and count griffon vultures on the walls

Find the chapel of San Bartolomé in the middle of the canyon and look at the hexagram rose window

Work out which parts of the Templar attribution are documented and which are speculation

Find the places where the Lobos disappears underground and comes back

Check which sectors are closed for vulture nesting before you plan a route

The Lobos has cut a limestone canyon twenty-five kilometres long through the Soria and Burgos border country, with vertical walls, caves and a river that disappears underground in places. In the middle of it stands the chapel of San Bartolomé, a 13th-century building attributed to the Templars, with a rose window cut as a hexagram and a set of alignments that have generated a large amount of speculation. The cliffs hold one of the largest griffon vulture colonies in Europe, which is the main reason to come and the reason parts of the park are closed in nesting season.

Cañón del Río Lobos: Vultures Over a Templar Chapel

Go into the Torreón de Fernán González, the only surviving Castilian fortress older than the 11th century

Find out what the Infantazgo of Covarrubias was and why it mattered to early Castile

Find the tomb of Kristina of Norway and find out how a Norwegian princess ended up buried in Burgos province

Find out what the legend of the Walled-Up Tower says happened to the infanta Urraca

Do the Triángulo del Arlanza properly: Covarrubias, Lerma and Santo Domingo de Silos

Count Fernán González — the man who unified Castile and made it independent — and his son García Fernández made Covarrubias the capital of the Infantazgo and one of the most important monastic lordships in the kingdom. The Torreón de Fernán González is the only Castilian fortress earlier than the 11th century still standing anywhere. It is also called the Walled-Up Tower, after the legend that Fernán González had his daughter Urraca bricked up in it for an affair with a shepherd. The collegiate church holds the tomb of Kristina of Norway, daughter of Haakon IV, who came to Castile to marry and died here.

Covarrubias: The Oldest Castilian Fortress Standing

Walk the ridge of windmills above the town and go inside one that still has its machinery

Go into the castle and work out what the Grand Priory of Castile and León was run from it

Find out who Juan José de Austria was and what he did to the palace here

Work out what was lost on 22 September 1809 when the Order's archive burned

Come in late October for the saffron festival, which is the other thing this town does

In 1183 Alfonso VIII, with the approval of Pope Lucius III, gave Consuegra to the Sovereign Order of the Hospital of St John, which made it the head of the Grand Priory of Castile and León in La Mancha, took the castle as its seat and granted the town a charter copied from Cuenca's. Juan José de Austria, natural son of Philip IV, lived here as grand prior and rebuilt the palace. On 22 September 1809 the French beat the duke of Alburquerque outside the town and burned much of the Order's archive. The windmills on the ridge above are what everyone comes for.