Between the grasslands of Reinosa and the Tres Mares peak there are as many worlds as there are enigmas.
The road that crosses this fragment of the Campoo valley gets stuck on days of sun and snow on its way to the summits of the Alto Campoo ski resort.
But there are times when travelers who go to these facilities ignore the cultural and archaeological universe that unfolds, like a Russian doll, over dozens of kilometers.
The Romans called
Fontes Iberis
the place where the Ebro River bubbles with waters that come down from the Híjar mountain range, and that ancient well baptizes an entire peninsula.
Fontibre is today a beautiful place of beech trees, poplars and oaks that provide shade to a huge picnic area, in addition to being the beginning of a route through the lands of the old marquisate of Argüeso.
The Campoo valley is a hinge of landscapes and climate between exuberant Cantabria and dry Castilla, which is losing population but not charm.
The Ebro River reservoir, on the border with Burgos, flooded the pastures and part of Rozas de Valdearroyo, whose bell tower rises from the waters, although the large flooded surface has today become a setting for water sports and a bird sanctuary.
The Ebro Reservoir Ornithological Center is dedicated to environmental education, the dissemination of the 70 species of birds and facilitating guided tours of the different observation points.
Upstream, however, the Cantabrian region continues its slow natural cadence between forests, livestock, archaeological remains and traces of ancient Roman settlers.
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Julióbriga, the Roman city built during the Cantabrian Wars (29-19 BC), is the greatest Roman exponent in lands inhabited by settlers that Cato the Elder already mentioned when he wrote about the Ebro: “It is born in the Cantabrians, large and beautiful, abundant in fish.”
Thus, the ruins and Roman roads that can be seen in the Collado de Somahoz, Peña Cutral or the nearby Pesquera are only a layer of the different inhabitants in the history of Campoo, whose trace is evident in the menhirs of Valdeolea, 4,000 years old. life and the same orientation, several megalithic monuments or the prehistoric caves of Suano.
The Argüeso Experimental Archeology Research Center, in fact, has been developing a Cantabrian town in a corner of Campoo for two decades.
The village is a laboratory that reproduces the architecture and life of more than 2,000 years ago through clay constructions with broom and rye roofs, animals, orchards and utensils used in ancient work.
The original reproduction of the huts is the greatest attraction of an Iron Age complex that concentrates archaeological research on several sites in the region.
This is its synthesis.
Roman road from Bárcena from Pie de Concha to Pesquera (Cantabria). Sergio Rojo (Alamy / CORDON PRESS)
Cultural heritage on stately lands
The Argüeso castle is the symbol of the old local power.
The fortress was built in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries and was in the hands of the Casa de la Vega-Mendoza until the 19th century, who controlled the dominion of Campoo and communications with the plateau.
Built on the foundations of a hermitage in honor of San Vicente Mártir, the fortification “rises alone on a conical and naked hill”, as defined by the illustrious historian Miguel Ángel García Guinea, and is composed of two towers, a body and a parade ground.
Today it serves as a cultural center where exhibitions, conferences and films are made, such as
The Mill
, presented at the recent Malaga Festival and starring Pilar López de Ayala, Asier Etxeandia and Imanol Arias.
The restoration work has contributed to preserving this Gothic beauty, one of the 80 castles that are part of the Club of Castles and Palaces of Spain among the 10,000 cataloged throughout the country.
The castle of Argüeso, in Cantabria.Teo Moreno Moreno (Alamy / CORDON PRESS)
About six kilometers away, the Proaño Tower, built in the 13th century, also contributes to enriching the Gothic architectural catalog of Campoo.
The tower and mansion belonged to Ángel de los Ríos (1823-1899) and houses one of the funerary steles that the chronicler of the province of Santander found in the Espinilla necropolis.
A few houses away is the El Pajar Ethnographic Museum, a collection of more than 2,000 pieces with all kinds of utensils of rural life, from threshing machines to farming tools and plows that reflect the way of life of a region dedicated to livestock. .
In addition to the old necropolis with tombs, sarcophagi and funerary steles that De los Ríos excavated at the end of the 19th century and kept in the tower, all the small towns with native architecture and intermittent silence reflect their traditional air in ashlar houses with balconies. , arches, high stone walls and shields, such as the baroque Torre de los Ríos de Espinilla or the different mansions from the 17th and 18th centuries scattered throughout Naveda, Mazandrero and Celada.
Romanesque art also has a place in the depths of Campoo, delimited by the Sierra de Híjar and the Sierra del Cordel, although these expressions are displayed with greater force in the neighboring Valderredible and the Montaña Palentina.
But, in reality, the valley is dotted with churches and humble Romanesque hermitages (San Juan Baustista, San Martín, San Miguel) in the municipality of Valdeolea.
The collegiate church of Cervatos is the best known among the Romanesque temples, although in these grasslands bathed by the Híjar, Argoza and Queriendo rivers there is also the church of Santa María la Mayor, in Villacantid.
Built at the end of the 12th century, beyond its beautiful image it houses an interpretation center on the Romanesque in the region.
Returning to Espinilla, just four kilometers away, we enter a crossroads.
From here, in the heart of the valley, several roads lead to all cardinal points following a layout similar to that of the Roman roads.
It is a song to the past: a route leads to the Cabuérniga valley through the Palombera pass;
another road leads to Reinosa, capital of the Campoo region;
In another direction, the road heads towards neighboring Palencia while the horizon continues towards Alto Campoo, where travelers stop at the traditional restaurants La Cotera, in Abiada or Pico Casares de La Lomba to regain strength.
The Collegiate Church of Cervatos, by 1129.PHAS / Universal Images Group / Getty Images
Outdoor activities in all seasons
Watching over the meadows and meadows is the Tres Mares peak, with 2,171 meters of altitude.
Its name is due to the bed of the Ebro, Nansa and Pisuerga rivers, whose waters end up in the three seas that embrace the Peninsula.
A road reaches the Fuente del Chivo viewpoint, at 2,000 meters, where the panoramic view encompasses the Polaciones valley, Peña Sagra, Liébana, Peña Labra and the Picos de Europa.
This roof located in the ski resort is, without a doubt, one of the best natural balconies to contemplate the ocean of fog and mountains of Cantabria, and that is why the routes that start from Chivo attract lovers of nature as virgin as it is wounded.
Alto Campoo has been part of the Life Econnect project that alleviated the impact of the ski resort on the ecosystem.
The European initiative, at least, has made it possible to unite the Sierra del Cordel and the Sierra de Híjar, two high mountain areas that make up the Natura 2000 network, in addition to restoring slopes and the habitats of birds such as partridge and harrier.
They are not the only inhabitants.
In the Altos del Nansa and Saja and Alto Campoo valleys it is common to come across roe deer, chamois or deer, whose moans during the rut alter the infinite silence of the high mountains.
The presence of the brown bear also keeps the area under the watchful eye of a recovery program.
In the wooded Monte Milagro, for example, its mysterious presence baptizes the Camino de los Balcones al Oso, a beautiful seven-kilometer route that, from the Joyanca viewpoint, in La Lomba, runs through enclaves that it is recommended not to invade.
This route is just one of the nine Short Route trails that cross beech forests, oak groves, holly groves, waterfalls, grasslands, rivers and, finally, the wide mosaic of landscapes in which native forests abound.
The Abiada holly forest, at the headwaters of the Guares River, the oak forest on the slopes of Pico Liguardi or the Sobardal beech forest are part of that triad of typical species of the region.
A fragment of Campoo is even located within the Saja-Besaya natural park.
Because this valley in which Tudanca mares and cows are part of its daily scenes, the same scenes of mountains, rivers and forests continue to dazzle its new
discoverers
.
Its mountains and brañas are touched by dozens of livestock cabins with their own names—Gulatrapa, Aviones, Laguío or Guzmerones—that now serve as a refuge for hikers, mountaineers or skiers in search of alternatives when the snow does not appear at the heights.
Nature always comes to your rescue.
The birth of the Ebro River, the pulse of the cobbled squares in lonely towns and the parade of ancient settlers, in short, make Campoo a basin with ingredients as ancient as they are hidden.
And, perhaps, among the natural and wild air of the region, that is the only secret of its conservation.
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