Río Lobos Canyon and Magical Soria

The Cañón del Río Lobos is one of the most impressive and least crowded natural areas in all of Castilla y León: a limestone gorge 25 kilometres long, cut by the river Lobos between the provinces of Soria and Burgos, with walls over 100 metres high where griffon vultures nest — more than 150 pairs — alongside golden eagles and Egyptian vultures. The river, crystalline and turquoise, periodically vanishes beneath the limestone in a karst system and reappears kilometres later at spectacular springs.

The Hermitage of San Bartolomé, in the heart of the canyon, is among the most enigmatic monuments in Spain: a 12th-century Romanesque chapel attributed to the Knights Templar, standing at the exact point where the canyon widens into a natural rock amphitheatre. Its geographical position — said to be equidistant from the four extremes of the Iberian Peninsula — and the mysterious symbols carved on its corbels have fed Templar legends for decades. The walk in from the car park (2 km along the riverbank, between poplars and vultures wheeling overhead) is one of the loveliest in Spain.

Soria is the smallest and least populated provincial capital in Spain, and it is precisely that solitude that gives it a melancholy charm which captivated the great Spanish poets. Antonio Machado lived here between 1907 and 1912, wrote Campos de Castilla and married Leonor Izquierdo, who died of tuberculosis at just 18. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer set several of his Leyendas at the Monastery of San Juan de Duero — a Romanesque cloister with Mudéjar arches unique in Spain — and on the Monte de las Ánimas, beside the Duero.

Soria's cooking is one of the great unknowns of Castile: Soria butter, the only butter in Spain with a designation of origin; autumn mushrooms (boletus, saffron milk caps, king oyster — Soria is Spain's mushroom-tourism capital); the torrezno de Soria, crisp and juicy pork belly that has earned its own designation; and winter black truffle, of which Soria produces 35% of the Spanish crop. The repertoire is startlingly good.

Practical notes: Soria is cold in winter, with frequent snow above 1,100 m, but pleasant from April to November. The roads are good, lightly trafficked, through moorland, pine forest and canyons. Fuel in Soria, El Burgo de Osma and San Leonardo. For a bed, the Hotel Castilla Termal in El Burgo de Osma — the 16th-century Hospital de San Agustín — has a thermal spa. For food, wood-oven roast lamb, in any restaurant in the area, is the definitive dish of Castile.