Visiting Palencia will allow you to enjoy the innumerable alternatives that a welcoming and accessible city offers you, that you can walk around and that, thanks to its AVE connection, is located just 90 minutes by train from Madrid. Dominating the vast plain that bathes the waters of the Carrión river, the city preserves that calm air and the charms that other Castilian cities offer. It can boast of preserving a rich historical and artistic legacy and of having an extensive network of green spaces that surround its urban area, molding an ideal landscape for hiking, running or nature tourism. Its gastronomy, of which the palentina stew, the suckling lamb or its exquisite cheeses are exponents, and a cultural and leisure offer, starring live music, street shows or theater, are other excuses to let yourself be caught in this escape.
It is impossible to avoid the imposing presence of the Cristo del Otero, the colossal image that, with twenty-two meters - the sculptural reproduction of a largest Christ in Spain and one of the highest in the world next to that of Rio de Janeiro -, presides over the city from a hill. The first stop on this trip is also one of the most interesting. This is its San Antolín Cathedral, a magnificent Gothic construction nicknamed with the name of "recognized beauty". And it is that its exterior appearance barely reveals the incredible secrets that it houses behind its walls, such as its mysterious crypt or the pieces of El Greco, Berruguete and Zurbarán. The seo is just one of the countless religious treasures scattered in the center. Advancing along Calle Mayor, the main artery of Palencia and nucleus of its commercial activity, you will find singular samples of the best architecture promoted by the bourgeoisie of the late nineteenth century: modernist buildings that stand on the high arcades of the two hundred columns that flank this long pedestrianized street almost one kilometer long.
On both sides of the journey, other streets will lead you to corners and squares as amazing as San Miguel, San Francisco or Plaza Mayor, seat of the Town Hall, and to buildings as surprising as the Convent of Santa Clara —stage of secrets and legends— or the Provincial Palace. But there is still much to see. Be sure to visit the romantic parks of the Paseo del Salón or the Huerta de Guadián (among whose woodland hides a simple Romanesque temple rescued from the waters of the Aguilar de Campoo reservoir); to cross the Carrión riverbank, avoiding its bridges to reach the parks that surround the riverbed; to contemplate the imposing industrial engineering of the Canal de Castilla and its dock; or tapas, enjoying the tranquility and quality of life of a city that has managed to preserve the magic and charms of its past, embracing the 21st century.