Palencia sits on the Castilian meseta north of Valladolid, a quiet provincial capital that most travellers drive straight past. Their loss. The cathedral — known as La Bella Desconocida, the Beautiful Unknown — is one of the finest Gothic churches in Spain, with a stunning interior that holds its own against Burgos or León but without a single tour bus outside.
The city is small, pleasant, and deeply Castilian: Calle Mayor is lined with cafes and shops, the river park along the Carrión provides a green edge to the old centre, and the Cristo del Otero statue surveys the flat plains from a hill at the city's north. Palencia was once home to Spain's first university (founded 1212, before Salamanca) and the surrounding Tierra de Campos — the vast, flat wheat country of central Castile — has some of the most evocative Romanesque churches in the country, scattered in tiny villages that feel barely changed since the 12th century.