Valladolid

Valladolid is a Spanish city and municipality located in the northwestern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula, capital of the province of Valladolid and seat of the Parliament and the autonomous government of Castilla y León. according to INE data for 2021, with 297,775 inhabitants. Its metropolitan area, made up of 23 municipalities, is the 20th in Spain, with a population of 414,281 inhabitants (INE 2013). It has an area of direct socio-economic influence of more than 600 000 people, only 47 km from Palencia and other important municipalities.

Although there are indications of settlements belonging to the Lower Paleolithic, and Vaccean and Late Roman sites, Valladolid did not have a stable population until the repopulation of the Duero basin, when Alfonso VI handed over his lordship to his favorite Pedro Ansúrez, in 1072. During In the Middle Ages it was the seat of the Castilian court, being endowed with fairs and Royal Jurisdiction and different institutions such as the Collegiate Church, elevated to the rank of Cathedral in 1595, the University, the Royal Court and the Chancery or Casa de la Moneda.

Carlos I made Valladolid the political capital and, later, between 1601 and 1606, it was the capital of the Spanish Empire until this function finally passed to Madrid. From then on, a period of decline began until the rise of the flour industry and the arrival of the railway in the middle of the XIX century under whose protection the first steel establishments and the circulation of capital appear, giving rise in 1857 to the creation of Banco de Valladolid. In 1854, El Norte de Castilla, dean of the Spanish daily press, was founded. After the war, the city underwent an important change, due to the installation of automobile industries and other sectors.

In Valladolid, San Fernando was proclaimed King of Castile and the Catholic Kings were married, Enrique IV, Felipe II, Felipe IV and Ana de Austria (Queen of France) were born, Magellan signed the capitulations of the first circumnavigation of the world and Columbus died. In it Cervantes finished writing Don Quixote, Quevedo worked and the greatest image makers and goldsmiths of the Hispanic Renaissance established their workshops.

In its old town, it preserves a historical ensemble made up of palaces, noble houses, churches, squares, avenues and parks, together with a museum heritage in which the National Sculpture Museum, the Patio Herreriano Museum of Contemporary Art or the Oriental Museum, as well as the house-museums of José Zorrilla, Colón and Cervantes. Among the events that are celebrated every year in the city are Holy Week, the Valladolid International Film Week (SEMINCI), the International Interior Tourism Fair (INTUR), Penguins, the National Snacks and Tapas Contest City of Valladolid or the Theater and Street Arts Festival (TAC).

Its strategic position and communication through a wide network of highways, high-speed rail (AVE), conventional rail, airport, and its character as a logistics node in the European Atlantic Corridor, will continue to allow its specialization as an industrial pole of Castile and Lion.

Place name

About the origin of the name there are several theories but little evidence. One theory states that in Andalusian times it was called Balad al-Walīd بلد الوليد, an Arabic exonym currently used and meaning "town of Walid" or "village of Ulit" perhaps alluding to the Umayyad caliph Walid I, who ruled the Empire. Islamic at the time of the Arab conquest, but more likely to some possible local Arab ruler or owner named Walid or a Christian by that name (in either case, this common Arabic name Ulit would be hispanicized to Olit or Olid). Closely related to this hypothesis, there is also the possible mixed Romance-Arabic etymology (not uncommon in the peninsula) of "Vallis Oleti" or "Valle de Olit". "Valledolit". Another possible origin could be "Vallis olivetum", that is, "Valley of the Olives", although given the climate with cold winters and frequent frosts in the late spring that the city has, it is not very likely that there would have been large number of olive trees in l to zone. Another theory affirms that the origin of the word comes from the Roman expression "Vallis tolitum" ("Valley of Waters"), since the river Pisuerga and the river Esgueva pass through the city, which before its channeling, in the XIX, stretched over several branches. Another theory is based on the name "vallisoletano", which is believed to come from "valle del sol" or "sunny valley". But it is unlikely, because this name derives from the Latin name of the city used since the late Middle Ages, "Vallisoletum", which is artificially created, for use in official or ecclesial documents in place names without precedent in the Roman era, as is also the case of «Matritus» or «Albasitum».

There is also the theory of Valladolid as a contraction of «valle de lid», a place, due to its plain, where the pre-Roman clans and tribes met for their armed confrontations.

The historian Ángel Montenegro Duque maintains that it could well be the "Tola" of Antonino de Ptolemy's itinerary, and points to the Celtic origin of the place name, from the root "tollo" ("place of waters"). a town of the Vacceos, "Vaccea Tollit" ("Solevantado de los Vacceos", or "high place of the Vacceos") seems a more likely name than "valle tollitum", since "Tolitum" evolves into "Toledo". The Latin origin of Valladolid would thus be a case of a false friend between "Tollo" and "Tollere". «Vaccea Tollit» seems to be the etymological origin of «Vallatolit» (XI century), which phonetically evolved naturally into «Valladolid ».

Pucela

Juana de Arco, «the Pucelle», inspired the legend of the appearance of the term Pucela

The term "Pucela" is also used, in a popular way, to name the city. There are several theories about the origin of this word, which place its appearance in the XV century.

• It is reported that in the centuryXVa few Vallisoltan knights went with their hosts to France, to fight on the side of Joan of Arc against the English. Juana de Arco was known as the "Doncella de Orleans". In French, the maiden says:pucelle», and in the Spanish that was spoken at that time, the word was very similar: "pucela". According to Luis Calabia, an official journalist and chronicler of Valladolid, at the end of the war, the gentlemen returned to Valladolid and began to count their feats and gallants, and everything that happened with the wave of Orleans. From then on they began to call them "pucelanos", and then the eponymous of "Pucela" came out. But there is no document that guarantees the existence of these gentlemen and their participation in the war of the Hundred Years.
• The professor at the University of Valladolid Celso Almuiña has a second theory: Valladolid is in a valley and is watered by the river Pisuerga, the river Esgueva and the channel of Castilla. Therefore, it is a pond in the middle of a dry environment. That charca may well be called poza, or its tiny pozuela, from which it would derive «Pucela».
• The ethnomusicologist Joaquín Díaz maintains that the term Pucela comes by the exclusive that the city had with the cements of Pozzuoli (Italy), "Puteoli" in Roman times, where it is puzolana. As Valladolid was the city from which they were distributed, when the cement porks were delivered, they were known as "pucelanos" to the vallisoletanos who delivered the loads.

Pintia

Finally, there is the term “Pintia”, which seems to have a much more cultured origin. Near Peñafiel, in the town of Padilla de Duero, are the ruins of an important city, presumably Celtic: Pintia, belonging to the pre-Roman town of the Vacceos. Identifying Valladolid with this city comes from the Renaissance and the custom that prevailed at that time of relating everything to the Greek and Roman civilizations. Subsequently, the non-existent relationship between Valladolid and Pintia was demonstrated.

History

Foundation

Monument to Count Pedro Ansúrez, one of the nobles closest to Alfonso VI, who was first lord of Valladolid

There are datatable indications in the Lower Paleolithic, essentially Acheulean, collected on the surface on the Quaternary terraces of the Pisuerga river, in Canterac (which is currently a large park located on the outskirts); but not it can be said that the city had a stable occupation until the Middle Ages, which is possibly when the place name that gives it its name arose. Subsequent settlements in the current province of Valladolid date back to pre-Roman times, with sites of Vaccean peoples existing in the area, who were settlers with a highly advanced culture and who, like the rest of the Celtic peoples, came to the peninsula from northern Europe. The greatest exponent of this culture in the vicinity, which was devastated by the Romans, is Pincia (Pintia), in the current town of Padilla de Duero.

For years, Valladolid was believed to be ancient Pincia, until archaeological excavations revealed the true location of the Vaccean city. In several areas of the old part of the city, remains from the Roman period have appeared: next to the church of La Antigua, construction evidence of a villa of a certain entity appeared (centuries I-III), as well as on Angustias, Arribas, Juan Mambrilla and in those of Empecinado and Padilla, where there is evidence of the appearance of several Roman mosaics. There have also been finds in peripheral points of the city; In the vicinity of the Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Prado, another villa was discovered in the 1950s: the Roman Villa of Prado, which houses a large residential architectural complex, accompanied by mosaics. In fact, a large marble and limestone mosaic, the Mosaic of the Cantharus (dated to the IV< century), presides over the hemicycle of the Courts of Castilla y León (deposited by the Museum of Valladolid).

Repopulation and expansion

The canvas María de Molina presents his son Fernando IV in the Courts of Valladolid, which is located in the Hall of Sessions of the Congress of Deputies, represents a moment of the regencias that María de Molina had to face from Valladolid, to the successive minorities of his son Fernando IV and grandson Alfonso XI. At his death he left the mentoring of young Alfonso XI in the hands of the city council

In the X century Alfonso III of Asturias consolidated the border of the Kingdom of Asturias up to the Duero, becoming part of the of the County of Castilla. In the XI century, during the repopulation of the Meseta, King Alfonso VI of León commissioned the Count of Saldaña y Carrión, Pedro Ansúrez, and his wife, Mrs. Eylo Alfonso, the settlement and expansion of the primitive agrarian nucleus, which already existed and was organized through an open Council. Alfonso VI granted the lordship of the same to the count in 1072, date from which the growth of the city took place. He had a palace built for him and his wife, Doña Eylo, which has not survived, as well as the Collegiate Church of Santa María (which gave it the rank of town) and the church of La Antigua. In 1208, King Alfonso VIII of Castile named it a courtly city and in 1255 Alfonso X granted it the Fuero Real.

After the early death of Enrique I of Castile, born in Valladolid, and the abdication of his mother, Fernando III the Saint was proclaimed King of Castile in 1217, in an act held in the Plaza Mayor of Valladolid. During the 12th and 13th centuries Valladolid experienced rapid growth, favored by the fairs and commercial privileges granted by the monarchs Alfonso VIII and Alfonso X "El Sabio". During these centuries, the city occasionally served as a royal residence and seat of the Cortes. The first Alcazarejo was transformed into the Royal Alcazar, and Queen María de Molina, Queen and Regent of Castile, had a palace built and established her residence there around 1300. In 1346, Pope Clemente VI granted the bull that allowed the passage of the Valladolid Private Study, existing since the second half of the XIII century, to General Study or University.

Juan II of Castilla grew up and died in Valladolid having reigned from this city, which he would say is "the most notable town of these my regnos and even outside of them". This king was buried in the church of San Pablo, until the definitive transfer of his remains to the Cartuja de Miraflores. Enrique IV of Castile was born in 1425 in the now-defunct Casa de las Aldabas on Teresa Gil street. In 1453 Álvaro de Luna, Juan II's almighty favorite, is tried, convicted and finally beheaded on a public scaffold in the Plaza Mayor. On December 7, 1453, the Concord of Valladolid was signed in the city, establishing peace between Juan de Navarra (future king of Aragon) and his son Carlos de Viana.

On October 19, 1469 Isabel of Castilla and Fernando de Aragón (who would become Fernando II of Aragón) celebrated their secret marriage in the Vivero palace (later the location of the Royal Audience and Chancellery), and spent their honeymoon honey in the castle of Fuensaldaña. Already in 1481 Valladolid had a printing press, located in the Prado monastery, belonging to the Order of San Jerónimo, and under the Catholic Monarchs the city experienced a period of great university dynamism, which culminated in the creation of the Colegios Mayores de Santa Cruz (by Cardinal Mendoza) and San Gregorio (by Fray Alonso de Burgos), which made Valladolid one of the hotbeds of modern bureaucracy.

16th-18th centuries

Recorded by Valladolid in 1574 by Braun and Hogenberg, belonging to the work Civitates orbis terrarum. The poster, in Latin, says: "Vallisoletum, aliis Pincia, communiter Valladolid dicitur, nobilisimum totius Hispania oppidum, serenissimum Regis Procerum Illustriumque virorum sedes est, ac proin magnificis aedificis, tam nobilium usui, praism cultui divina Et ex opificum et mercatorum frequentia ex ubertate soli ex praeter fluente Pisuerga haud contemnendas utilitates percipit». In Spanish it comes to say:

Vallisoletum, also Pincia, commonly called Valladolid, the noblest city of all Spain, is the headquarters (or land) of the most distinguished and distinguished noble men of the King, therefore adorned with magnificent buildings more splendidly built than in other cities of the proud Spain, has served both nobles and divine worship. And for the abundance of workers, traders and the product of the soil, and also for the mighty Pisuerga, it receives nothing despicable benefits.

In 1489 the Court of Chancery was definitively established, and in 1500 that of the Inquisition, to judge acts of heresy, giving rise to the celebration of the Autos de Fe. In 1506 Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid, and was buried in the city, in the disappeared convent of San Francisco. Another navigator, Magellan, signed the capitulations in Valladolid with King Carlos I of Spain, before beginning his western route to the Indies, on March 22, 1518. In 1509, Juan de Aragón y Foix, the only son of Fernando, was born in Valladolid. the Catholic and his second wife Germana de Foix, who died a few hours after birth.

In 1527 the future Philip II was born in Valladolid. Although in 1559 it would be the architect of the move of the court, still prince lived in this city his first marriage with Maria Manuela of Portugal and the birth of his firstborn Carlos. During his absence from Spain, his sisters Maria and Juana would detest the regimence from Valladolid. After the enormous fire of 1561, the king personally imposed himself on the reconstruction of the urban center. He gave his hometown the title of City and got the Pope the creation of a diocese of his own

In 1518 the Courts of Castile, meeting in Valladolid, swore in Carlos I as king. During the War of the Communities of Castile, the fire in Medina del Campo caused the uprising of Valladolid and, after the commoners' defeat in Tordesillas, the rebels began to regroup in the city, where the Junta was established. After the victory of the emperor, and the forgiveness of the rebels, except for their leaders, Valladolid became one of the capitals of the Spanish Empire under Carlos I of Spain and V of Germany, gaining great political, judicial and financial importance.

On May 21, 1527, the future King Philip II was born in the Pimentel Palace.

The famous controversy of Valladolid took place in 1550 and 1551 at the Colegio de San Gregorio and confronted two antagonistic ways of conceiving the conquest of America, represented by Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. That debate is today considered pioneering and a vital contribution in history to the construction of human rights. Its result was new ordinances that regulated the conquests, the creation of the figure of the defender of Indians and a notable impulse of the "right of nations".

In 1559, the autos-da-fe of May and October, famous for their severity, were celebrated. In 1561 the city was devastated by a huge fire, after which Felipe II undertook to rebuild the city, giving it the first regular Plaza Mayor in Spain. This king also granted his native town the title of city on January 9, 1596 by virtue of a Royal Provision, and obtained from Pope Clement VIII the creation of a diocese in 1595 (elevated to an archdiocese in 1857).

Juan de Herrera project (according to the ideal reconstruction of Fernando Chueca Goitia) for the fourth Colegiata of Valladolid, elevated to the cathedral rank in 1595

San Juan de la Cruz and Santa Teresa de Jesús met in Valladolid when, in 1568, the nun founded the first convent of the reform of the Carmelite Order, where she lived for a while. Fray Luis de León, who had already spent his childhood years in Valladolid with his family, was also imprisoned in 1572 in the city's Holy Office jails, to face an inquisitorial process for questioning the traditional way of understanding Theology..

The most famous image makers of the Spanish Renaissance, Alonso Berruguete, Juan de Juni or Gaspar Becerra, established their workshops in Valladolid upon their arrival from Italy.

From the desire of the Illustrated Reformism, its cultural entities and Economic Societies of Friends of the Country, to beautify the cities and their accesses, rationalize their urbanism and return man to nature, projects such as this plan of urban planning and plantation of negrillos in the Campo Grande of 1787 arise. Similar initiatives emerged for the Paseo y Plantío de las Moreras and the Paseo y Plantío de Floridablanca

In 1601, at the behest of King Felipe III of Spain, the Duke of Lerma, the court moved again to Valladolid, but it moved again in 1606. During this time, the future Felipe IV, and his sister, Anne of Austria, who would be Queen of France and mother of Louis XIV. It should be noted that during this period the artist Peter Paul Rubens arrived on a diplomatic mission and Cervantes published his first edition of Don Quixote in 1604. Quevedo and Góngora also lived in the city, and the great gouge of the Baroque Gregorio Fernandez.

The loss of the Court meant a great change for the city, which suffered a serious process of decline, only mitigated after 1670 with the establishment of textile workshops that heralded subsequent industrialization. The second wedding of King Carlos II, with Mariana de Neoburgo, took place in 1690 in the church of the Convent of San Diego, within the complex of the Royal Palace of Valladolid.

During the War of the Spanish Succession, the city sided with Philip V of Spain. In the second half of the 18th century, the Enlightenment appeared in Valladolid in a very timid, though influential way. Thus, spaces in the city such as Las Moreras are planted with trees, manufacturing is protected and stimulated, urban sanitation is encouraged, streets are cobbled and attempts are made to rationalize garbage dumping. The illustrated ideology weekly Diario Pinciano came to light in 1787. The Royal Geographical-Historical Academy of the Knights, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of the Immaculate Conception were created in 1779, or the Royal Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de Valladolid in 1783. The local and plateau economy would benefit from the construction of the Castilla Canal, the most important civil engineering project in Enlightened Spain, an initiative of the Marquis de la Ensenada, Fernando's secretary VI, and whose South Branch ends in Valladolid. In 1746, Pedro Regalado, a Franciscan from Valladolid, was canonized. The city suffered great floods in 1788, caused by the overflow of the Esgueva river.

19th century

War of Independence

The shield of Joseph I, with the eagle of the House of Bonaparte on the door of the church of the monastery of San Benito el Real, is testimony of the French occupation in the city. Napoleon resided at the Royal Palace of Valladolid in January 1809 where he prepared and from where he departed to his Central European wars

Valladolid was the city chosen to house the French troops upon their arrival in Spain, mainly due to its location on the Paris-Madrid-Lisbon axis. During the stay of the French troops, altercations took place in the city, between the residents and the soldiers, despite the continuous calls for calm by the authorities of both.

After the news of the riot in Aranjuez, the city also went into riot from March 24, for several days; the figure of Manuel Godoy was humiliated (his portrait of him ended up being torn to pieces and thrown into the Pisuerga), and culminated in the establishment of the Marqués de Revilla in the fernandista regiduría. On May 31, 1808, Valladolid's second May takes place: the people gather in squares and streets shouting "Long live Fernando VII!", demanding, in front of the town hall, the enlistment general, the delivery of arms, the appointment of a boss, and the proclamation of Fernando VII. The Cabildo acquiesced in it, and the demonstrators went to the Chancery. The insurrection aroused the concern of Marshal de Bessières. As a consequence, the battle of Cabezón was prepared, which took place on July 12, with an absolute defeat and the disbanded retreat of the army led by García de la Cuesta, meeting in very precarious conditions.

Joaquín Blake participated in numerous war actions. On July 14 he was defeated along with Cuesta in the battle of Medina de Rioseco. Blake, of Irish origin and president of the Regency Council of Spain and the Indies (1810-1811) and chief of the General Staff, died in Valladolid in 1827.

The city was finally liberated by the army commanded by Wellington, in July 1812. Evaristo Pérez de Castro, from Valladolid, was a deputy and first secretary in the Cortes of Cádiz, having an active role in claiming national sovereignty for them after the Napoleonic invasion. A plaque in the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri in Cádiz reminds him.

Confiscation, railways and progress

The Pasaje Gutiérrez (1886) is one of the few examples of commercial gallery that have subsisted in Spain, of those built in Europe during the second half of the XIX. They are constructions sponsored by the bourgeois, clear of the development of capitalism, industry and trade at this time. It is an example of beaux-artian architecture that combines classic elements with new materials and technological resources, such as iron cover and glass tile and gas lighting

Starting in 1830, with the confiscation of Mendizábal and the reorganization into provinces of Spanish territory, commerce and administration timidly reactivated. When Mendizábal transfers the immense orchards and gardens of the convents and their buildings, the opportunity is taken to open new streets or create public services in the new buildings.

With the development of the financial system, the first credit companies appeared, and in 1855 the Banco de Valladolid was created. In 1856, the dean of the Spanish daily press, El Norte de Castilla, was founded in Valladolid, the result of the merger of two other newspapers: El Avisador and El Correo of Castile.

General view of Valladolid in the second half of the centuryXIX

The arrival of the railway —Compañía del Norte from 1860 and Compañía de Ferrocarriles Secundarios de Castilla in 1884— to Valladolid was a great boost and set the direction of growth for the city. During this century the city did not grow notably, but its internal structure changed, new streets were opened, new squares and gardens were opened, such as the one in the West, the Campo Grande was reformed, and the Esgueva river was channeled and diverted, which means the end of the floods in the city. All this is possible thanks to the management of great mayors, such as Miguel Íscar.

On October 22, 1887, public electric lighting was inaugurated in Valladolid: at night, the lighting of the Zorrilla Theater and the Mercantile Recreation Circle took place, as well as some cafes and private houses. The supply power station, of a thermal nature, was located in an old weaving factory, on the left bank of the Pisuerga River; She was popularly known as "La Electra".

Claudio Moyano, Germán Gamazo and José Muro from Valladolid would be important politicians in Spain in the 19th century.

20th century

Map of Valladolid in 1901

The city expands, growing on the other side of the railway in the neighborhood that will be called Las Delicias. Santiago Alba, a lawyer and politician from Valladolid, would occupy various ministerial posts in different governments between 1906 and 1923, and would be president of the Congress of Deputies during the Second Republic. The city lived through the instability typical of Spanish politics in the first decades of the XX century and greeted the establishment of the Republic in 1931 On March 4, 1934, the Falange Española (Primo de Rivera's party) and the JONS (movement founded by Onésimo Redondo, from Valladolid) merged in an act held at the Teatro Calderón.

Spanish Civil War in the province of Valladolid (1936-1939)

On the afternoon of Saturday, July 18, 1936, a column of assault guards occupied the headquarters of Posts and Telégrafos (in the image), the radio station of Radio Valladolid, the CNT, the City Council, and later the General Office of the VII Military Region. With the important support of the Falangists and the Alphonsian monarchists, they soon controlled the entire province, proceeding to organize a column that marched on Madrid through the ports of Guadarrama and Navacerrada, giving rise to the first battle of the war, the battle of Guadarrama

The coup d'état with which the Civil War began, triumphed in Valladolid, remaining in the national zone, being one of the 12 centers of the military uprising. The assault guard revolted at 5 in the afternoon of the 18th July and the military rebels on the night of July 18 to 19, 1936 took control of the military forces after violently detaining their legitimate boss, General Molero.

Valladolid became the first major peninsular city in which the uprising triumphed. With the important support of the Falangists and the Alfonsino monarchists, they controlled the entire province in a short time, proceeding to organize a column that marched on Madrid through the ports of Guadarrama (Alto del León) and Navacerrada. Thus, the city remained from the beginning of the war inside the rebel zone, not belonging to the front at any time during the war.

During the war and also after it ended, Franco's repression shot around 40 people every day in Valladolid. There, as in other cities in the rebel zone, the prisoners were taken out at night in trucks to be shot on the outskirts of the city without even the simulation of a trial. General Mola would send a statement asking that these executions be carried out in more discreet places and that the dead be buried, something that had not been done until then. It is estimated at least 2,500 fatalities, and more than 7,000 retaliated against throughout the province. In the capital, the Campo de San Isidro stands out as a place of executions. For its part, the Carmen cemetery is one of the places where one of the largest mass graves of the civil war is located nationwide. Among the victims, the case of the mayor of Valladolid himself during the Second Republic between 1932 and 1934 stands out., who had been re-elected again in the 1936 elections, Antonio García Quintana. After the uprising, he remained in hiding until he was betrayed and shot in the Campo de San Isidro de Valladolid on October 8, 1937.

The city also suffered bombardments from the Republican aviation, being the sixth most bombed city in the rear. The most severe attack occurred on January 25, 1938, when the city was the victim of a Republican bombardment, in which fourteen people died and another seventy were injured. The city would remain on the rebel side until the end of the war, in 1939.

Francoism (1939-1975)

In 1940 the worst catastrophe of this century took place in the city when the Pinar de Antequera powder keg exploded, causing more than 100 deaths.

After the prostration of the first post-war years, since the 1950s, Valladolid experiences an important change, due to the installation of automobile industries (such as FASA-Renault) and other sectors (Endasa, Michelin, Nicas, Pegaso, Inda...). It was the time of the Spanish economic miracle (1959-1973). The absorption of thousands of emigrants from the rural exodus from Terracamp causes a significant demographic and urban growth. This fact led to the implementation of urban planning, projected and partially executed in 1938: the César Cort Plan. As a consequence of its approval, the greatest loss of urban heritage occurs in the old part of the city: old buildings, Convents and cloisters, including dozens of Renaissance palaces, were demolished to make way for high-rise apartment blocks, disrupting the city's architectural harmony. In the last years of the 1960s, the construction of the Duque de Lerma building began, which would be the tallest in Valladolid. For three decades it remained uninhabited and on several occasions on the verge of being demolished, its exterior becoming an important protest wall.

Paseo de Zorrilla in the 1970s

Starting in the 1970s, social unrest in Valladolid increased due to the increasing activity of student movements and workers in the automobile industry, mainly. FASA workers promoted work stoppages with the support of the city's workers' associations. On January 20, 1975, seven students from Valladolid were tried and convicted in Madrid for illicit association. In response to the sentence, three days later, representatives of all the Schools and Faculties carried out a closure in the Provincial Hospital of Valladolid that ended with the eviction and detention by the police. Demonstrations in front of the rectory and protests against the then rector of the University of Valladolid, gave rise to a withering response from the Ministry of Education which decreed the closure of faculties and finally, on February 8, an order was given to close the University.

Transition and parliamentary democracy (since 1975)

Former San Juan Beer Factory in 1980. It was knocked down at the beginning of the later decade

Valladolid continues its growth with the arrival of democracy in Spain. With the first democratic municipal elections (1979), the socialists became mayors: the socialist Tomás Rodríguez Bolaños remained mayor from 1979 to 1995, in the period 1991-1995 thanks to a pact with the IU, since the winner of those elections, the Popular Party could not reach an absolute majority.

The Duque de Lerma building in the 1980s, with paintings and demands

In 1995 the Popular Party won the elections for the second time, this time with an absolute majority and Francisco Javier León de la Riva was appointed mayor, remaining in office until 2015 when the Popular Party won the local elections (for the seventh consecutive time) but loses the absolute majority and the socialist Óscar Puente Santiago became the new mayor of the city with the support of Valladolid Take the Word (which became part of the municipal government) and Sí se Puede Valladolid.

In the 1980s, new residential neighborhoods arose (such as Parquesol), which caused the city to grow in its extension. The city becomes the definitive headquarters of the executive (Board) and legislative (Cortes) powers of Castilla y León by law passed in 1987, although the Cortes continued to be located in the Fuensaldaña Castle until the inauguration in 2007 of its new headquarters in the Villa del Prado neighborhood of the city.

Relevant people during the democratic period, closely linked to the capital, are Gregorio Peces-Barba who, as a deputy for Valladolid in 1977, was one of the "Fathers" of the Spanish Constitution, the former presidents of the Government of Spain José María Aznar, who was also president of the Junta de Castilla y León, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero or the vice president of the Government Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría.

21st century

The Millennium Dome illuminated at night, a building clearly inspired by the contemporary architectural currents of the centuryXXI

As a significant city in the evolution of the Spanish language, the II International Congress of the Spanish Language was held between October 16 and 19, 2001, at the Teatro Calderón, a forum for reflection on the Spanish language, chaired by by the kings of Spain.

Valladolid was awarded by the international association LUCI in 2011 with the City People Light Award for the Best Urban Lighting Project for the Ríos de Luz Route and in 2012 with the Popular Jury Award for the Best Project of Urban Lighting of the City People Light Awards. In 2012 Unicef declared Valladolid a Child-Friendly City. In April 2013, Valladolid was awarded the Reina Sofía Award for Accessibility of Spanish Municipalities for its efforts in integration, normalization and active participation of all citizens regardless of their functional capacity.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic caused the declaration of a state of alarm throughout Spain and the confinement of the population to their homes.

Symbols

The oldest known representation of the Valladolid coat of arms dates from the year 1454, although at that time only the wavy shreds appeared on it. The coat of arms may have been granted by the Valladolid King Enrique IV of Castile.

Escudo de Valladolid represented in one of the stained glass windows of the hall of the Casa Consistorial

The gules border with the eight gold castles in the city's coat of arms appears for the first time on the cover of one of the more than ten copies of Juan's Historia de Valladolid Antolínez de Burgos dating from 1722 (although the original work was completed in 1641). Until then, the municipal coat of arms had never appeared with such an increase in weapons. The border comes to be a historicist transcript, also ornamental, of the old medieval seal of the city where eight notches or towers also appeared as part of the fence or wall that symbolically surrounded the town, identifying these castles with the eight doors of the two fences or walls that the population came to have represented by the border. This composition was successful and was gradually adopted by the different guilds of the city and finally by the council.

The royal crown is open, of medieval origin, older than the closed royal crown. It would have been granted by the Catholic Monarchs, as a symbol of a royal town, with its own privileges.

Lastly, the Laureate Cross of San Fernando, the highest Spanish military decoration, created in the XIX century, was Granted by the new Francoist authorities by decree of July 17, 1939 to the municipality of Valladolid for war actions carried out by the rebel side to control the city and its surroundings in the Spanish Civil War.

The flag of Valladolid is crimson with the coat of arms of Valladolid located in the center.

Valladolid acquired the category of town in the middle of the XIII century to continue adding titles: good and loyal (Very loyal) in the year 1329; Very Noble in 1422; City in 1596; Heroic in 1854 and Laureate in 1939.

Demographics

Valladolid overflows its own limits and jumps to surrounding municipalities. This urban transformation has been defined by the emeritus professor of urban geography Jesús García as the transition "from the city to the agglomeration".

Population

Valladolid has a population of 299,715 inhabitants as of January 1, 2017.

Based on the first population data collected by the National Institute of Statistics, dating from 1842, a constant population growth is observed throughout the second half of the century XIX, which coincides in time with the construction of the Canal de Castilla and the arrival of the railway to Valladolid.

Throughout the first three thirds of the XX century, Valladolid experienced a significant increase in population, thanks to the exodus rural. This growth, slow during the first two decades and interrupted by the Civil War, was especially significant from the 1960s, with the arrival of foreign labor, and was the time of greatest population growth in the history of the capital. However, starting in the 1980s, there was a turnaround in this trend, which meant a stagnation in population growth, due to two reasons: the cessation of migratory flows that had driven growth in the past and a decrease abrupt in the birth rate.

In recent years, the city of Valladolid has been losing population in favor of its peri-urban strip, where the growth of new residential areas proliferates. It has a little more than 400,000 inhabitants, and is the 20th area in Spain in terms of population. The rising cost of housing in the capital, the lack of an adequate urban planning policy and, as a consequence, the increase in the problems associated with road traffic, originated residential changes of a centrifugal nature. Young couples who do not emigrate to other provinces opt for the acquisition of a house in the municipalities of the periphery, whose demographic growth derives from the emptying of the city (from 330,700 inhabitants in 1991 to 303,905 in 2015) and the settlement of families from, to a lesser extent, other municipalities in the province.

In the last five years, Valladolid has suffered a gradual loss of population, mainly due to movements towards its metropolitan area.

Graphic of demographic evolution of Valladolid between 1828 and 2021

Population according to Geographical-Statistic Dictionary of Spain and Portugal Sebastian Miñano.Population of law (1842-2011) or according to population censuses of the INE. In the censuses of 1857 and 1960 the term of the city is increased because it incorporates La Overuela and Puente Duero, respectively. At the time of the factual and legal population data, the highest number has been taken.Population according to the municipal register of 2021.

Population movements

Bartity

Evolution of birth (blue), mortality (red) and natural growth of Valladolid between 1900 and 2005

In 2005, a total of 2,600 births occurred in Valladolid. This supposes the confirmation of an upward trend that goes back to the year 1999. This birth rate is the highest registered since 1992, the year in which 2658 births were registered. For its part, the crude birth rate in Valladolid stands at 8.10 ‰, which is the highest figure since 1992.

Mortality

In 2005, 2,735 deaths were registered in the city of Valladolid, which represented an increase compared to previous years. It is, in fact, the highest figure since 1920, the year in which 3,206 deaths were registered. The crude mortality rate was estimated at 8.52 ‰, following the upward trend reflected in the number of deaths, and is the highest since 1969.

Migratory movements

According to 2002 data, a total of 9072 people arrived in Valladolid. Of this total, 2,246 came from the province itself, 1,721 from other provinces of Castilla y León, 2,407 from another Autonomous Community and finally 2,698 people came from abroad.

By continent, Europe is the most represented in Valladolid with 8,680 residents in 2010. Regarding the country of origin, Bulgaria provides the largest number of foreigners, with 3,983 compared to 3,881 in 2009. The Romanian group is consolidated in the second place of Europeans present in the capital with a positive balance of 42 inhabitants (it has gone from the 2490 who resided in 2009 to the 2532 who do so at present).

Metropolitan Area

The metropolitan area of Valladolid, as such, is neither legally nor administratively constituted, although there are proposals from some parties to create it. However, this name is given to the group of municipalities, which, centered on Valladolid, are defined by the Guidelines for Planning the Territory of Valladolid and its Environment (DOTVAENT), a document prepared by the urban planning institute of the University of Valladolid at the request of the Junta de Castilla y León.

Precisely this lack of legal definition makes it impossible to know its size with certainty, so the figures come from independent studies or indirect data from official bodies. Thus, according to the project AUDES5 - Urban Areas of Spain 2005, the metropolitan area of Valladolid has a population of 388 555 inhabitants, while according to indirect data from the National Institute of Statistics (2007) its population would be 407,148 inhabitants.

Panoramics of the center of Valladolid

Geography

Situation of the municipality of Valladolid in the province of Valladolid

Satellite view of the city

The city of Valladolid is located in the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula. It is located in the center of the North Plateau, a division of the Central Plateau, which is why it presents a typical, flat landscape with little vegetation. The Valladolid relief is made up of a plain interrupted by small series of hills that create a mountainous landscape of witness hills such as San Cristóbal (843 m), a few kilometers From the capital. The coordinates of the city are 41° 38' N 4º 43' O. The altitude of the city center is 690 m a.s.l. no. m., while the maximum altitude of the municipality is 863 m s. no. m., which occurs to the northeast of the same, between Páramo de Cabezón and Barco de San Pedro; and the minimum altitude is 671 m s. no. m., which occurs in the last stretch of the Duero River within the municipality, a few meters from its confluence with the Pisuerga River.

The municipal term has two exclaves, one to the north of Villanubla (Navabuena) and another to the west of Ciguñuela (El Rebollar).

Northwest: Villanubla	North: Fuensaldaña, Cigales, Santovenia de Pisuerga	Northeast: Head of Pisuerga, Castronuevo de Esgueva
West: Zaratan, Arroyo de la Encomienda, Simancas		This: Renedo de Esgueva, La Cistérniga
Southwest: Villanueva de Duero	South: Viana de Cega, Villanueva de Duero	Sureste: Laguna de Duero, Boecillo

Its central location in the Northern Plateau makes it almost equidistant from the rest of the Castilian cities. Palencia is 50 kilometers away, Zamora 104 kilometers away, Segovia 117 kilometers away, Salamanca 121 kilometers away, Burgos 127 kilometers away, Ávila 138 kilometers away, León 139 kilometers away and Soria 208 kilometers away.

Map of the municipality

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Interactive map — Valladolid and its municipality

Climate

Climogram de Valladolid

The climate of Valladolid is continental Mediterranean. According to the Köppen climate classification, the climate of Valladolid in the reference period 1981-2010 is, in general, of the Csa (Mediterranean) type. However, the average temperature in July and August only slightly exceeds 22 °C in the urban area (specifically at the Valladolid observatory), but this value drops below 22 °C in some higher-altitude areas of the municipality, at outskirts, thus giving a climate of the Csb type (Mediterranean with mild summers) in those places. The climate of Valladolid is largely determined by the location of the city in the center of the sedimentary basin of the Duero, which, being almost completely surrounded by mountains that isolate it from the sea, has an extremely dry climate for what one would expect at almost 700 meters of altitude and only 190 kilometers from the Cantabrian Sea in a straight line. The mountains that delimit the plateau retain the winds and the rains, except to the west, where the absence of large mountains allows an open corridor to the Atlantic Ocean and it is here, through Portugal, where most of the rainfall that arrives penetrates. to Valladolid. The winds from the north reach Valladolid dry and cold, while those from the south are usually hot and humid, but it is from the west and southwest that the rain usually reaches Valladolid. The prevailing winds in Valladolid are from the southwest, and this is reflected, for example, in the orientation of the Villanubla airport runway.

Precipitation is distributed quite irregularly throughout the year, although there is a marked minimum in summer and a maximum in autumn and spring. The annual precipitation is 433 mm and the average relative humidity throughout the year is 64%. There are 2,624 hours of sunshine per year and 67 days of rain.

As for the temperatures, perhaps the highlight is the important daily thermal oscillation. The thermal differences between day and night often exceed 20 degrees. The average annual temperature is 12.7 °C. Winters are cold with frequent fog and frost (56 days of frost on average). The city has 9 days of snow a year; although heavy snowfalls are infrequent due to the particular geographical situation of the city. In the winter anticyclonic calms, mainly on the long nights of December and January, the thermal inversion produces fog, which may not rise all day. It is in December and January when the strike can appear. Early spring still has the cold of winter, to become quite mild and pleasant as we approach summer. Summers are generally hot and dry, with highs between 30 °C and 35 °C, but mild lows, slightly exceeding 14 °C. In the city it is possible to record a night with a tropical minimum above 20 °C. Autumns are generally rainy. In its days, mild afternoons alternate with temperatures around 20-23 °C at the beginning of autumn, with cooler and even colder days as winter approaches. The temperature records are 41.1 °C, on July 15, 2022, and -11.5 °C on February 14, 1983, measured at the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) observatory located in the Parquesol neighborhood, the highest in the city.

Although this data is official, in the cold wave of January 1971, specifically on the 3rd of that month, temperatures reached –16.4 °C at the Valladolid airport, located on the outskirts of the city. This is so in the case of Villanubla, whose absolute minimum occurs in this cold wave, reaching –18.8 °C on January 3, 1971. At the Villanubla observatory, the temperatures are lower, because it is located at an altitude of 849 meters, about 150 meters higher than the city.

Average weather parameters of Valladolid Observatory (735 msnm) (Reference period: 1981-2010, extremes: 1973-2016)
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. abs. (°C)	17.2	22.9	25.0	29.6	34.4	38.8	41.1	39.5	38.2	30.2	24.0	21.4	41.1
Average temperature (°C)	8.2	11.2	15.2	16.9	21.0	27.0	30.7	30.1	25.6	18.9	12.4	8.6	18.8
Average temperature (°C)	4.2	5.9	9.0	10.7	14.5	19.3	22.3	22.1	18.5	13.2	7.9	5.0	12.7
Temp. medium (°C)	0.2	0.7	2.8	4.6	7.9	11.6	14.0	14.1	11.3	7.6	3.5	1.3	6.6
Temp. min. abs. (°C)	-11.0	-11.5	-10.2	-6.0	-1.7	2.6	3.2	3.6	0.0	-3.4	-6.8	-10.8	-11.5
Total precipitation (mm)	39.8	27.1	21.9	46.2	49.3	29.2	12.6	15.8	30.7	54.6	52.1	53.4	432.6
Precipitation days (≥ 1 mm)	6.3	5.2	4.8	7.8	7.9	4.5	2.1	2.3	4.3	7.5	7.1	7.7	67.7
Days of snow (≥)	3.0	2.1	0.8	0.8	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.7	1.4	8.8
Hours of sun	101.3	147.2	214.9	232.0	271.5	322.0	363.0	333.9	254.1	181.8	117.1	88.8	2624.0
Relative humidity (%)	83	72	62	62	60	52	45	48	56	70	79	84	64
Source: State Meteorology Agency

Hydrography

The river Pisuerga at its pass through Valladolid, with the Puente Mayor at the bottom, to its left the Duque de Lerma Building and to its right the Playa de las Moreras. The Legend of the Pisuerga boat is also observed. The average flow of this river makes it the main tributary of the Duero. In fact, in its confluence, in Pesqueruela, the flow of the Pisuerga is much greater than that of the Duero. A popular saying says: The Duero carries fame and the Pisuerga water

As indicated above, the most probable origin of the name of the city comes from the Celtic expression Vallis tolitum (Valley of Waters), and it is that Valladolid is framed in the confluence of the Pisuerga river with the river Esgueva. The latter crossed the city in two branches, until it was channeled at the end of the XIX century.

Valladolid's relationship with the Esgueva River was ambivalent. It served as a sewage collector, so it prevented drinking its waters, the maximum unhealthiness and had fetid odors, but at the same time it was used for washing and was the driving force for factories and workshops.

From 1840 to 1864, Valladolid experienced significant economic development: the Canal de Castilla was put into service and the Madrid-Irún railway line was completed, thus breaking the balance. In this way, the Esgueva was decided to cover the central areas of Valladolid, and channel it in the peripheral areas. In addition, the Duero river also crosses the municipality through the nucleus of Puente Duero, south of Valladolid.

The Pisuerga, the city's main river, currently offers various leisure and cultural options. The Leyenda del Pisuerga boat allows you to take a trip down the river, from the Boarding Station, located at Paseo de las Moreras, downriver, to the neighboring town of Arroyo de la Encomienda. It is a boat 25 meters long and 6 deep. During the journey you can closely observe the flora and fauna of Pisuerga. In addition, Valladolid has an artificial beach, Playa de las Moreras, which allows Valladolid residents to sunbathe in the center and even take a dip in Pisuerga itself.

Valladolid also has two artificial canals: the Canal de Castilla, built between the mid-XVIII century and the first third from the XIX to facilitate the transport of wheat from Castilla to the northern ports; and the Duero Canal, built in the XIX century to ensure the water supply to the capital and allow the creation of surfaces irrigation south of the city.

Administration and politics

Regional Administration

Courts of Castilla y León

Valladolid houses the headquarters of the Cortes of Castilla y León and the Junta de Castilla y León, including the Presidency of this and its ten ministries.

The current headquarters of the Parliament of Castilla y León was inaugurated in June 2007. It is located on Avenida de Salamanca, in the residential neighborhood of Villa de Prado, and is the work of the Granada-born architect Ramón Fernández Alonso. The previous headquarters He was provisionally in the Fuensaldaña Castle, in the Valladolid town of Fuensaldaña.

The location of the regional executive, chaired by Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, is in the Colegio de la Asunción. This building is located in the Plaza de Castilla y León in the Covaresa neighborhood, while the headquarters of the different ministries are located in different parts of the city.

Provincial administration

The Provincial Council of Valladolid also has its headquarters in the city, specifically, in the Palacio de Pimentel. After the 2019 municipal elections, it is chaired by Conrado Íscar of the Popular Party, replacing Jesús Julio Carnero García, from the same party, in office.

Municipal government

Valladolid is governed by the mayor and the councilors, who make up the municipal corporation, which is in charge of the municipality. The Valladolid City Council has its headquarters in the Plaza Mayor, in the Town Hall building. Councilors are elected every four years, by universal suffrage, by those over 18 years of age. The current mayor is Óscar Puente Santiago, of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since June 13, 2015, which governs in coalition together with Valladolid Takes the Word and Sí se Puede Valladolid, of which only the first assumes government areas.

The political parties present at the local level are the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, led by Óscar Puente Santiago, the Popular Party, Valladolid Take the Word (Izquierda Unida, Equo and individuals), Ciudadanos and Vox. Thus, after the 2019 municipal elections, the composition of the Valladolid city council is as follows:

Casa Consistorial, headquarters of the City of Valladolid

Plenary Hall

Territorial organization

Population territories and centres in the municipality of Valladolid

The municipality of Valladolid is made up of three separate territories: the main one, where the city of Valladolid is located, and two exclaves, known as Navabuena and El Rebollar, to the northwest of it. The one in Navabuena is the northernmost and the largest of the two, while the one in El Rebollar is uninhabited.

Demographically speaking, the population of the municipality is divided into five unique population entities, which in turn comprise seven population centers. The entities and their populations are, according to the 2012 gazetteer:

• Valladolid (city): 306 872 inhabitants;
• Pinar de Antequera (colonia): 848 inhabitants;
• Duero-Esparragal Bridge (place): 1 179 inhabitants, distributed in the cores of:
  • Duero-Esparragal Bridge: 968 inhabitants;
  • The Pinarillo: 178 inhabitants;
  • Doctrinos: 33 inhabitants;
• Navabuena (working houses): 38 inhabitants;
• La Overuela (arrabal): 2 480 inhabitants.

With the renewal of the municipal register of inhabitants carried out in 1986, the municipal term was officially divided into different zones, since before this date there was already a popular division, into neighborhoods, which had no function administrative. To carry out this division, different criteria were used, such as the physical continuity of the territory, sociological criteria and their popular denomination.

From that moment on, Valladolid was divided into a total of twelve districts, which in turn were subdivided into forty-seven statistical zones, not necessarily coinciding with the traditional neighborhoods.

Economy

Economic history

The Canal de Castilla is the most important work of civil engineering (hydraulic) in the century.XVIII and was built to facilitate the transport of the wheat of Castile to the ports of the north and from there to other markets. View of the Costa del Canal de Castilla de Valladolid

After its repopulation, and once the valley was freed from Arab occupation, the city began to expand. At the end of the XI century, a great variety of neighborhoods of a trade union character began to appear, which were established in different areas, opening streets under the direct influence of the economic question. Around these dates, annual fairs were held in Valladolid, which were usually attended by businessmen from various places.

At the beginning of the XIV century, attracted mainly by the commercial bustle, agricultural activity and the attention that in the Villa favored the Court, people came to Valladolid, not only from Hispanic territories, but also from other countries, of Christian, Jewish or Mudejar descent, who shared the same geographical space. In 1359 the city obtained the Privilege of having a Mint, which survived until the XVIII century when Felipe V concentrated the manufacture of this metal.

In the 16th century, the city was the capital of the Kingdom, and the main political bodies were centralized there. administrative. Added to this was the fact that Felipe II, shortly before his death, granted Valladolid the title of city, and, although in the middle of the century XVI the capital was moved to Madrid (until 1601), Valladolid continued to experience a moment of great economic splendor.

The Arc de Ladrillo on the train tracks. This construction, made in 1856 and attributed to the engineer Venancio del Valle, can be considered the first railway construction of the city, a prologue of the arrival of the railway to Valladolid

From the definitive march of the Court, in the time of Felipe III, the city suffered in the following centuries a stage of certain decadence, barely mitigated by the effects of the Enlightenment, led by a sharp demographic decline, and above all a gradual economic depression.

Valladolid did not experience major changes until the second half of the XIX century, when it was reborn with the help of the flour industry and the development of communications, which favored the transportation of production and imports. The operation of the Canal de Castilla and the appearance of the first industrial centers around the dock, and the subsequent arrival of the railway in Valladolid, constituted the cornerstone of this urban takeoff. The financial system was also developed; The first credit societies appeared, and in 1857 the Banco de Valladolid was created.

In 1864 there was a serious economic crisis, causing the collapse of the Bank of Valladolid and the appearance of famines. In the last third of the XIX century, the city, still marked by crisis, progressed very slowly. The secondary sector is in the minority, while the tertiary is at the forefront of the productive sectors.

Already in the 1950s, it experienced a powerful industrial development, mainly around the manufacture of automobiles; and also commercial, as a consequence of the above. At present, the Valladolid industry continues to be fundamentally linked to the automobile industry. In parallel with this large-scale production, several urbanized industrial estates house small and medium-sized companies, dedicated to supplies of all kinds for the Spanish market. Commerce is another of the great economic sources of the city, which, due to this centuries-old tradition, has had the International Trade Fair since 1965 to showcase the constant innovations in the sector.

Economic structure

The Renault 4CV was manufactured by FASA-Renault in the Valladolid factory. The company was established in 1951 in the city as FASA (Manufacture of Automobiles Anonymous Society) and has since become an important point of the local and regional economy

The main economic sector in Valladolid is the services sector, which employs 104,168 people, representing 72.7% of Valladolid workers affiliated with Social Security. Likewise, 82.5% of the city's work centers correspond to companies in the tertiary sector. The branch with the largest number of establishments is the retail trade of non-food products, which represents more than 50% of the total.

Banco de España branch

Next is the industry and construction sector: 22,013 people are employed in industrial workplaces and 15,710 find work in the construction sector, representing 15.4% and 11% of the total number of workers, respectively. By workplaces, 6.0% correspond to industrial centers and 10.3% to construction companies. The predominant industry of the city corresponds to the sectors derived from agricultural activities, metallurgy, the automobile industry, chemicals, construction, graphic arts, etc. The industrial estate of San Cristóbal is one of the two industrial estates of the Valladolid city. This polygon welcomes a large number of companies. It is delimited by the interior ring road (VA-20), by the outer ring road (VA-30) and by the Soria (A-11) and Segovia (A-601) highways.

Lastly, agricultural activity, a very minority one, employs 1,491 people, barely 1% of the total, with only 153 work centers (1.2%) dedicated to this activity. Of this scarce agricultural dedication, the predominant type of cultivation is rainfed, represented in the production of wheat, barley and sugar beet, mainly.

The main companies in the city are: Renault-España, Indal, Michelín, Iveco, Ambuibérica, Aquagest, ACOR, Grupo Norte, Panibérica de Levaduras (Lessafre), Helios, Ingotes Especiales or Queserías Entrepinares.

Services

Education

Baroque facade of the historical building of the University, today headquarters of the Faculty of Law. The University of Valladolid is one of the first in the world. It was a reality in the last quarter of the century.XIIIand in the centuryXVI it is declared, together with that of Salamanca and that of Alcalá, as one of the three major universities of the Kingdom. Today is one of the most important Higher Education Centers in Spain

The palace of Santa Cruz (1491) was the second oldest College in Spain, which began to walk in 1484. It is one of the first manifestations of the Spanish Renaissance and today is the headquarters of the Rectorate of the University of Valladolid

Education in Valladolid depends on the Ministry of Education of the Junta de Castilla y León, which assumes the powers of education at the regional level, both at the university and non-university levels. According to data from the Ministry itself, It is estimated that in the 2005-2006 academic year the total number of non-university students was over 52,000, who have 141 teaching centers at their disposal, with 2,399 classrooms and 4,487 teachers.

Regarding university education, Valladolid has two universities and a campus of the Universidad Isabel I (the online university of Castilla y León):

• University of Valladolid, founded in the centuryXIIIIt's one of the oldest in the world. Public university that presents different faculties and campuses distributed by the city. In addition, the university has campuses in three other provinces of Castilla y León: Palencia, Soria and Segovia.

Currently, the University of Valladolid has four campuses in the city: Huerta del Rey, Centro, Río Esgueva and Miguel Delibes. Spread across its 25 faculties and associated centers, some 2,000 professors teach more than 15,500 students enrolled in 2018.

A building of the UEMC Campus

In addition to the 25 centers, it has a series of administrative buildings, such as the Palacio de Santa Cruz, where the rectory is located, and the Museum of the University of Valladolid (MUVa), the Student House, where the rest of the administrative services are, or the CTI (Information Technology Center), which is located in the basement of the Alfonso VIII University Residence, next to the old Faculty of Sciences.

• Universidad Europea Miguel de Cervantes. The UEMC is a private university, of a presence and online nature, founded in 2002 and has 4500 students. They are distributed in their three faculties: Social Sciences, Health Sciences and the Higher Polytechnic School, they are taught 17 degrees, 6 double degrees, 6 International Double Degrees, 11 Masters, a PhD program and numerous own degrees offered by the university, which imparts both in its presence and online modality. Recently an expansion has been made on its campus with the construction of a new building that duplicates the area for teaching and research, in addition to incorporating a University Clinic, a film and television set and a new library.

• Isabel I University. Isabel I University is a private university based in Burgos, online, created in 2011, with 6000 students. It has five faculties, and its office in Valladolid has information and registration point, and is located on the Philippine Walk 3.

Health

The University Clinic Hospital is the oldest of the two with which the city counts, heir to the Resurrection Hospital

Valladolid has 410 health facilities, including outpatient clinics, health centers and hospitals, both public and private.

Hospital Universitario Río Hortega de Valladolid. It is the second hospital in the city, inaugurated in 1953 but moved to another location and modernized in 2009

The two public hospitals in Valladolid, both dependent on SACYL (Castilla y León Health), are the Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valladolid, heir to the historic Hospital de la Resurrección, with 777 beds, and the Hospital Universitario Río Hortega, with 589. A third hospital has been built in the Las Delicias neighborhood, the new Río Hortega, which opened its doors in January 2009 and replaced the old Río Hortega. Valladolid has the following health centers: Barrio España, Canterac, Circunvalación, Delicias I, Delicias II, Magdalena, Pilarica, Plaza Circular, Rondilla I, Rondilla II, San Pablo, Tortola, Arturo Eyríes, Casa del Barco, Gamazo, Huerta del Rey, La Victoria, Parquesol, Army Square, Alameda Park -Covaresa; of which Rondilla, Delicias and Pilarica have PAC emergency services.

The Recoletas health group has two hospitals in the city, the Felipe II Hospital and the Campo Grande Hospital, the latter being the most important in Castilla y León of this private group. It also has a third center, the Paracelsus Center, which functions as a primary care center and with some specialties.

In addition to health coverage, the University of Valladolid has a University School of Nursing and a Faculty of Medicine, where Medicine, Speech Therapy, and Nutrition and Dietetics are taught. Medicine studies in Valladolid date back to the XV century, being the first Medicine faculty erected in Spain, and the city has with the second oldest Royal Academy of Medicine in Spain.

Associated with the university institution are various health research centers: the Institute of Applied Ophthalmobiology (IOBA), created in 1994; the Institute of Pharmacoepidemiology (IFE), dedicated to research on the safety and effects of medicines in the population; the Institute of Medical Sciences (ICIME); the Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics (IBGM), attached to the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) or the National Flu Center.

Transportation

Road access routes

Access to Valladolid by road

Bicycle

VallaBici Municipal Bicycle Loan System

The Valladolid city council has had a Bicycle Loan System called VallaBici for years, modernized in 2013, as an individualized, comfortable, healthy, ecological and easy-to-use means of public transport. Likewise, the system is completely electronic and works 24 hours every day of the year. There are 34 loan points and 260 bicycles spread throughout the city so that you can choose where to pick up or leave your bicycle quickly and easily at any time.

Buses

Urban

One of the double units of AUVASA, the municipal bus company

Bus services replaced the Valladolid Tram network in the 1920s. After a long period of management through a private concession, since 1982 urban transport in Valladolid has been managed by the municipal company Autobuses Urbanos de Valladolid, S.A. (AUVASA), in charge of public transport within the municipality of Valladolid. In addition, through an agreement with the Valladolid City Council, several lines reach the towns of Simancas and La Cistérniga. It has an annual budget of about 31 million euros.

It has 23 ordinary lines (2 of them circular), 9 working lines to industrial estates, 2 shuttle lines to the Miguel Delibes University Campus, 7 special morning service lines and 5 at night (Búho), 6 F lines that serve the José Zorrilla stadium on match days, and 5 special lines for different fairs or other cultural events at Real de la Feria.

It has a fleet of 150 vehicles with an average age of 12.83 years. If only the vehicles of the ordinary lines are taken into account, their average life is 10.89 years, while that of the buses that reinforce the lines at peak times or replace the usual ones due to breakdowns or any other reason rises to 19.2 years.

Currently, of the total fleet, 58.7% (88 buses) run on LPG, 50 on biodiesel (33.3%), 11 are rechargeable hybrid-electric (7.3%) and one bus it is hybrid (0.7%). 22% are 18-meter articulated buses (33 units), and the rest are 12-meter rigid buses. The entire fleet is low-floor and 109 buses (72.7%) have a ramp for the disabled. All the buses assigned to ordinary lines have a ramp for the disabled.

Metropolitan buses

There are several urban bus lines that connect the capital with the municipalities of its metropolitan area. These buses serve municipalities such as Zaratán, Laguna de Duero, Simancas, La Cistérniga, Tudela de Duero or Arroyo de la Encomienda, they usually have a frequency of half an hour or less. These buses usually have their last stop or start at the Valladolid bus station located on Puente Colgante street, in the center of the city, a few meters from the railway station and the city's main road artery. Zorrilla's promenade.

Intercity

Through the services of the different companies, it connects daily with various towns in the province and other provinces of Spain. International routes are also made to European countries, such as France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Great Britain or Germany.

Electric vehicle

Patrol car of the Vallisoletana Municipal Police

Valladolid is one of the pioneer cities in the integration of electric cars in Spain (together with Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Palencia), through the creation in 2010 of a pilot plan for the installation of recharging points in the city –similar to the Movele project–, but promoted from the Board.

Valladolid was the first Spanish city where an electric car, the Renault Twizy, was mass-produced.

Air transportation

Airport terminal

The Valladolid-Villanubla Airport (IATA: VLL, ICAO: LEVD) is located 10 km from Valladolid, in the municipality of Villanubla, at 846 meters above sea level; It was inaugurated in 1938. The airport runway belongs to the Villanubla military air base, located opposite the terminal, on the other side of the runway, and the aerodrome is administered by the Air Force.

With a total traffic of 253,271 passengers, 5,032 operations and 149,687 kilograms of cargo traffic in 2018 according to official AENA sources, it is 31.er Spanish airport by passenger volume.

It has six regular national destinations: Barcelona, Seville, Lanzarote (summer), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (summer), Palma de Mallorca (summer), Tenerife (summer).

The Torozos private airfield is also located in the municipality of Valladolid, located to the north of the Villanubla airport.

Railway

Estación de trens Campo Grande (1895) constituted by the Compañía de los Caminos de Hierro del Norte de España, which exploited the General del Norte line (Madrid-Irún)

Through the Valladolid-Campo Grande de Adif Station, formerly of RENFE (also known as North Station), Valladolid is connected to various towns in the province and Castilla y León and also with the rest of Spain, with regular trains to Madrid, Barcelona, Santander and Bilbao among others.

The station is located on the conventional line Madrid-Irún, one of the main lines of the Spanish network. Since 2007 it is also the end of the line of the LAV Madrid-Valladolid, which in the future will be extended to the north (Basque Country, Asturias, Cantabria...), forming the so-called North-Northwest High Speed Axis. Until the LAV Valladolid-León came into operation, a dual-gauge changer was installed on the station tracks, which allowed variable-gauge trains to take advantage of the Madrid-Valladolid LAV and subsequently go to other cities in northern Spain (Gijón, Santander, Bilbao, Vitoria and Irún).

In 1985, after 89 years of operation, the Valladolid-Ariza railway was abolished from passenger traffic. The 245 km line used the trains from Barcelona to Salamanca as well as the La Coruña-Barcelona train. The line remained open to freight traffic until 1993. Currently it is only in service as far as La Carrera, to serve FASA Renault.

Likewise, to the north of the city there is a stop called Valladolid-Universidad that serves the Miguel Delibes Campus of the University of Valladolid, and the neighborhoods of Pilarica and Belén. Some of the regional and Media Distancia trains that go from Valladolid to Palencia, Burgos or León stop at this halt.

The Comisiones Obreras union has proposed a commuter train between Palencia, Valladolid and Medina del Campo, serving this urban conurbation. This project has been supported by the mayors of the towns involved.

High speed

High speed line Madrid-Segovia-Valladolid at Valladolid-Campo Grande station

On December 22, 2007, the high-speed line was inaugurated that connects the Campo Grande station with Madrid in fifty-six minutes at speeds of 300 km/h and with the use of Talgo Series 102 trains, nicknamed "duck". Since January 26, 2009, there are Avant train services, known as “lanzaderas”, which link Valladolid with Segovia and Madrid at much lower prices than the former, and even more so with the use of travel vouchers. The duration of the shuttle trip between Valladolid and Madrid is approximately one hour.

On September 29, 2015, the high-speed line Valladolid-Palencia-León was inaugurated, so these three cities were connected by AVE. Travel times from Valladolid to these capitals have been significantly reduced: twenty-nine minutes to Palencia and seventy to León. This line is used by various commercial services from Madrid: a total of forty-five weekly services in each direction between Madrid and León, plus the twenty-one between Madrid and Santander, which run along the line to the Villamuriel changer. There are two daily AVE services between Madrid and León (with Series 112 trains), four Alvia services to Gijón (Series 130), three Alvia services to Santander (Series 130), one Alvia service to Ponferrada (Series 121) and one AV City to León (Series 121).

The section up to Burgos of the Venta de Baños-Burgos-Vitoria high-speed line is in an advanced state of construction, which will provide new services to Valladolid when it is inaugurated. The platform works of all its sections were awarded throughout the year 2009, the assembly of the tracks between 2014 and 2015.

Urban integration of the railway in the city

Since the railway route crosses the center of the urban area, dividing it into two parts with a barrier that is difficult to communicate, various solutions to the problem have been proposed since the 1980s, and with greater intensity since the arrival was imminent from high speed to the capital. The options being considered ranged from improving the urban integration of the route, keeping it on the surface, to diverting the lines through a new route outside the city, through submerging the urban route into a trench or burying it with a tunnel boring machine or cut and cover tunnel using retaining walls, from the outskirts to the railway station.

In 2002 an agreement was reached between the Valladolid City Council, the Castilla y León Government and the Ministry of Public Works to bury the entire urban layout, between the Daniel del Olmo bridge and the University halt. On November 6, 2002, the corresponding collaboration agreement was signed between the administrations involved; and on January 10, 2003, a management company called Valladolid Alta Velocidad 2003 was created, with 50% of the capital from the companies of the Fomento Group and 25% from each of the other two administrations. The purpose of this company was defined as the promotion of the urban transformation derived from the integration works of the arterial railway network in Valladolid. To this end, the company has as its main asset a commitment to transfer the land where the Renfe Central Repair Workshop is still located and the rest of the surface that is freed from railway and associated uses, for its urban development and sale. The intention was to finance the entire railway operation with the benefits obtained from urban planning.

The burying of the train in Valladolid would mean a significant change in land use in the entire strip that is currently occupied by the railway line. Its disappearance would eliminate the dividing line that currently divides the city, leaving space for new public uses and residential areas. Thus, not only would it clear a large space, but it would also free up a set of historical buildings that constitute an example of a unique industrial building, such as the Arco de Ladrillo or the Locomotive Depot. To carry out the works, the arch would necessarily have to be dismantled.

During 2017, the plan to bury the tracks was completely discarded by the entities that make up Sociedad Valladolid Alta Velocidad and an agreement was reached to carry out a project to integrate the tracks with new tunnels for vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles and reform of the current ones.

The first work of integration saw the light of day in April 2019. Rafael Cano Square, in the Pilarica neighborhood, is now depressed under the train tracks. During 2019, the projects for the new Panaderos-Labradores-Avenida Segovia (pedestrian and vehicle) crossing and the Unión-Pelícano, Andalucía-Padre Claret and San Isidro pedestrian crossings will also be developed. The Renfe workshops will move to the new complex in San Isidro from April 8, 2019

Heritage

The Royal sites and surroundings

The conventual church of St. Paul, stage of numerous royal ceremonies, presides with the stone imagery of its façade, St. Paul's Square (before Palace Square=. Here is the Palace of Pimentel, in which Philip II was born in 1527, with its silver lining window, the Renaissance Palace of Villena, the College of Saint Gregory, of the Catholic Kings style, and the Royal Palace

Palacio Real de Valladolid

Near the Pisuerga river, together with what for a long time was the only entrance road to the city, the Mayor bridge, crossing the streets of the old Jewish quarter of the city, there are a series of squares and streets with abundance of ancient temples and noble civil buildings. In this environment are located the palace of the Counts of Benavente, the church of San Nicolás de Bari or the convent of San Quirce, in the Plaza de la Trinidad, the conventual street of Santo Domingo de Guzmán and the church of San Agustín, converted Today in the municipal archive.

In the Plaza de San Pablo, the center of court life in the time of Felipe III and where his predecessor Felipe II was born, is the Church of San Pablo, which presents a façade by Simón de Colonia, in Gothic style Elizabethan, which resembles a stone altarpiece. It corresponds to the last period of the Gothic style. It was the scene of numerous royal ceremonies, the first burial of the Infante Alfonso and Juan II, or the baptismal place of Enrique IV, Felipe II, Felipe IV and Ana de Austria. Here Maximilian II and Maria of Austria got married, and Hadrian of Utrecht took the cardinal's hat, who would eventually become Pope Adrian VI. It was a favorite place for numerous bishops who later carried out their pastoral activity in the New World.

The Calderon Theatre, Jerónimo de la Gándara, was opened in 1864. The facade, of great development, moves within the classicist taste and its interior was decorated by the famous scenery of the Augusto Ferri era. Each October becomes the main stage of SEMINCI

On the opposite side of the square, the Royal Palace, residence of the Spanish monarchs Carlos I, Felipe II and Felipe III and also of Napoleon Bonaparte during the War of Independence, has reached the present with numerous structural alterations from its primitive plans, completed around 1528. Felipe IV was born here in 1605. It was built by Luis de Vega, architect of Carlos I, and its Renaissance courtyard is decorated with medallions attributed to Esteban Jamete and coats of arms of the different territories belonging to the Spanish Empire. In the 18th century Ventura Rodríguez built the neoclassical staircase.

The corner with Calle de Las Angustias is occupied by the Pimentel Palace, in which, since Empress Isabel did not have her own residence in Valladolid at the time, Felipe II was born in 1527. The building, made of brick, has two notable stone details: the doorway with a carpanel arch and the corner with a plateresque angular window. Cadenas de San Gregorio street houses the four dependencies of the National Museum of Sculpture: the College of San Gregorio, the Church of San Benito el Viejo, the Villena Palace and the Palace of the Count of Gondomar (Casa del Sol).

Next to the Villena Palace, on Fray Luis de Granada street, is the house where the romantic poet José Zorrilla was born and lived, and which houses the Zorrilla House Museum. Nearby, the church of San Martín stands out for its slender tower, built in Romanesque style at the beginning of the XIII century. For its part, classicism prevails on the façade of the Penitential Church of Nuestra Señora de las Angustias, erected at the beginning of the XVII century, with a monumental sculpture by Francisco del Rincón.

In front of this last temple, inaugurated in 1864 according to a project by Jerónimo de la Gándara, is the Calderón Theater. Its location and structure follows the currents of the moment. The façade moves within the classicist taste and inside is the show room, in the shape of an Italian horseshoe. It is decorated with paintings by Augusto Ferri, a stage designer of the time. On the stage there is a stage system due to the Italian engineer Egidio Piccoli. Behind the theater is the Archbishop's Palace, which was owned by Juan de Villasante and María de Villarroel, built in the middle of the XVI. In 1857 it became the seat of the first Valladolid archbishop, Luis de la Lastra y Cuesta.

The Plaza Mayor and surroundings

The reconstruction of the surroundings of the Plaza Mayor de Valladolid is an exceptional fact in the centuryXVI. Francisco de Salamanca's project involves the implementation of conceptions of modern urbanism for the first time in Spain. The main squares of Madrid and Salamanca, dating from 1617 and 1729 respectively present a clear influence from the Plaza Mayor vallisoletana

Originated from the string line drawing of the streets with arcades that followed the fire of 1561, the so-called historic core of Valladolid is articulated from the Plaza Mayor by means of the seven roads that cross it.

Built in the 16th century, Valladolid's Plaza Mayor is the first regular main square in Spain, and served as model, from the XVII century, for many others in Spain and South America: in the XIX, the old Market Square became the cultural, political, economic and social center of the city.

In 1908, the current Town Hall opened its doors, a palace with four towers, a rectangular floor plan and an interior patio, from whose front stands a gallery that supports the main balcony. This building is the work of Enrique María Repullés, inspired by Antonio de Iturralde's project, but modifying it to imitate the models of Spanish Renaissance architecture.

In front of the Town Hall, in the place that was occupied until the XIX century by the convent of San Francisco, where he died Christopher Columbus, is the Zorrilla Theater. The theater was inaugurated in October 1884, with the play Traitor, Unconfessed and Martyr, with the presence of the play's own author, José Zorrilla, and the Valladolid poet Emilio Ferrari.

The monastery of San Benito el Real was the head of the Spanish Benedictine monasteries for almost two centuries, Congregation of Saint Benito de Valladolid, having supranational transcendence with subsidiaries in Hispanoamérica, Portugal, England or Prague

On one of the sides of the Town Hall, the church of Jesus maintains a Catalan neo-Romanesque façade, made of pressed brick.

Crossing the Plaza de la Rinconada, behind the Town Hall building, where the Post Office and Telegraph Palace stands, you can access the church of San Benito el Real, of the Benedictine order, one of the most ancient of Valladolid. It was erected on top of the old Alcázar Real, and it is made in the Gothic style, although the façade is later: it was designed by Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón in the middle of the century XVI. Inside, the grille from the same century stands out, which covers the three naves of the church. Next to it is the Mercado del Val, which dates from the XIX century.

The street of the Platery is a perfect prototype of the Renaissance perspective of the end of the centuryXVI and a valuable urban testimony. Here he was born in 1390 San Pedro Regalado, patron of Valladolid, and possessed his establishments the best silversmiths of his time, like the Arfe family

Very close, the church of San Miguel and San Julián, on the highest topographical point of the city, was a temple of the Society of Jesus in Valladolid, as attested by the façade and the interior structure, conforming to the Roman model. Inside you can see works by Gregorio Fernández and reliefs by Adrián Álvarez and Francisco de Rincón.

In the same street of San Ignacio some of the many palaces built in this area in the time of Felipe II are preserved, such as the Palace of the Marqués de Valverde, on the outside of which a angled window and medallion decoration stand out, and the Fabio Nelli Palace, a work of Renaissance classicism by Juan de Lastra and Diego de Praves. Next to these palaces, through a small entrance, you can access the Plaza del Viejo Coso, the primitive bullring of Valladolid.

In the Plaza de las Brígidas is the convent of Las Brígidas, formerly the Palace of Licenciado Butrón, now converted into the General Archive of Castilla y León. The semi-detached church has a regular-joint brick façade.

The Penitential Church of Nuestra Señora de la Vera Cruz, at the end of Calle de la Platería, was designed by Diego de Praves in 1596. It houses processional sculptures in polychrome wood, belonging to the Brotherhood of Vera-Cruz.

The cathedral and its surroundings

On the banks of the currently diverted southern branch of the Esgueva river, Pedro Ansúrez built the collegiate church of Santa María, destined to be the religious head of his new and prosperous fiefdom. During the first half of the XII century, three National Councils were held in the temple, and the building being insufficient or of little rank, a new one was erected from the XIII century following the new Cistercian architecture.

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption of Valladolid began to be built according to plans of Juan de Herrera of 1580, although it will never be concluded according to these. Alberto de Churriguera designs in the centuryXVIII the baroque decoration of the top hastial of the facade. The interior guards works such as the main altarpiece of John of Juni or the crucifixion table of Michel Coxcie. In the medieval chapels of the ancient Colegiata of Santa Maria is located the Diocesan Museum and Cathedral

The unfinished Cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción was projected by Juan de Herrera with a plan of great monumentality, a double proportion for two equal squares with a transept and towers in four corners, but the lack of income from the newly created Valladolid bishopric, The death of the architect and Felipe II, the main promoters of the work, and the lack of resources and interest in its term during the following centuries, meant that only almost half of what Herrera devised was built. Attached to its walls, the Romanesque and Gothic remains of the collegiate church survive, from the XIII century, which it replaced as the main church from the city. The main altarpiece of the cathedral is the work of Juan de Juni.

The church of Santa Maria La Antigua was consecrated at the end of the centuryXI for Count Pedro Ansúrez. Under its foundations, remains of a late Roman villa have been found. The first funerals were held in 1506 by Christopher Columbus

In the Plaza de la Universidad stands the main building of this institution. The historic building of the University of Valladolid was built in the 18th century according to the plan of Fray Pedro de la Visitación. Its sculptural decoration is the work of Antonio Tomé and sons.

Nearby, from the XI century, stands the church of Santa María La Antigua, founded by Count Pedro Ansúrez, Lord of Valladolid, with a slender French-influenced bell tower, known as The Queen of Castile's Romanesque towers, topped with a pyramid-shaped roof and a cloister, both from the turn of the century XIII. The rest of the structure and the interior are in the Gothic style. At the beginning of the XX century, the Gothic naves of the temple threatened ruin and in 1917 they were demolished, beginning the reconstruction in neo-Gothic style.

Halfway between these places and the Plaza Mayor, the Pasaje Gutiérrez is preserved, a commercial gallery built in 1885 in the European style of the moment, following the design of Jerónimo Ortiz de Urbina, and which constitutes next to the Pasaje de Lodares de Albacete, the only examples of this type of construction in all of Spain. Near the Passage is the church of El Salvador, where, according to tradition, the patron saint of Valladolid, San Pedro Regalado, was baptized.

Campo Grande and its perimeter

Project of 1891, the Mantilla House was one of the first buildings with iron structure, electric light or hydraulic lifts

Bordering the Campo Grande, on the Recoletos Sidewalk, a great artery of expansion of the bourgeoisie, buildings from the end of the 19th century XIX and early XX: Casa Mantilla, from 1891, in an eclectic style, with Renaissance inspiration, or the Modernist Casa del Príncipe, from 1906, the work of Jerónimo Arroyo, an architect from Palencia trained at the Barcelona school.

After the demolition of some convents, the Acera de Recoletos becomes an urbanizable area chosen by the Vallisolete bourgeoisie to lift their houses of French and modernist influence like the House of the Prince, 1906. Next to this, in No. 12 of this popular route, was born the venerated writer Miguel Delibes

After crossing the Acera de Recoletos you reach Plaza de Colón, where the Convent was located until the XIX century from San jose. A few meters from the square is the Valladolid-Campo Grande Station, the city's main railway station.

Surrounding the Campo Grande, on Paseo de Filipinos, the Church of San Juan de Letrán stands out for its façade and its vaults covered with Baroque plasterwork, both from the 17th century XVIII, work of Matías Machuca. The body of the church is from the late XVII.

From the 18th century century, it is also the convent of the Filipino Augustinians. The building, whose façade faces the back door of Paseo del Príncipe del Campo Grande, was designed by Ventura Rodríguez.

Continuing the route around the park, we find the Valladolid Cavalry Academy, which dates from 1915 and is a historicist building topped by spiers similar to those that characterized the Habsburg palaces.

Next to the Cavalry Academy, the Plaza de Zorrilla is a key point in the Valladolid urban layout. Presided over by a statue of Zorrilla, the work of Aurelio Carretero, it links the main streets of Valladolid: the previously mentioned Acera de Recoletos, Paseo de Zorrilla, the city's main boulevard, Calle Santiago, which leads to the Plaza Mayor and the streets Miguel Íscar, Duke of Victoria and Spain Square.

Columbian heritage

Pedro de la Gasca, virrey and pacifier of Peru, sculpted in stone on the facade of the church of La Magdalena, is considered the greatest that exists

Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid on May 20, 1506. The City Council decided in 1968 to build a building in the Gothic-Elizabethan style that reproduced a palatial house owned by Diego Colón, the Admiral's younger brother, located in the city of Santo Sunday, in the Dominican Republic. This building now houses the Casa Museo de Colón.

After its avant-garde expansion, the Casa de Colón has become an important research and study centre for the history of America

On the same street, on the opposite sidewalk, the church of La Magdalena, from the XVI century, shines in its façade a large stone shield, coat of arms of its patron, the viceroy of Peru and bishop, Pedro de la Gasca. Inside you can see the main altarpiece, that of Santiago, and the alabaster tomb of the mentioned bishop, the work of Esteban Jordán The Palace of Santa Cruz, the first Renaissance building in Spain, erected from 1486 by the architect Lorenzo Vázquez de Segovia, under the patronage of Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza, has a doorway with a semicircular arch and a three-story courtyard, two in the late Gothic style and the third with Baroque nuances, the result of a reform from the XVIII. In its library, which is accessed through a Plateresque door, valuable documents are kept on its gilded wooden shelves on two floors, including the Beato de Valcabado, from the year 970.

Nearby, the Monastery of Las Huelgas Reales, in the Palladian style, preserves a Mudejar arch from what was the palace of the Queen of Castilla María de Molina. And in the convent of Santa Clara, from the XV century, the Franciscan severity of the exterior contrasts with the Baroque plasterwork of the XVII.

The Descalzas Reales convent was commissioned by Felipe III and Margarita of Austria, in the 17th century; It has a three-story tower, of the palatial type, with latticework on the balconies. Inside it is possible to appreciate the Tuscan-style cloister, and, in the church, the altarpiece made jointly by Juan de Muniátegui, Gregorio Fernández and Santiago Morán.

The Palacio de los Vivero, built in the XV century, heads a complex of buildings that was enlarged as the needs of the administration of justice. The Catholic Monarchs got married in it (1469), and then decided its destiny as Royal Audience and Chancery.

Lost Heritage

The Convent of San Francisco, shot down in 1836, in a painting of the centuryXVII which represents a bullfight in the Plaza Mayor de Valladolid

The Arch of Santiago was erected in 1626 by the architect Francisco de Praves. It was demolished in 1863 with the intention of facilitating the transit of vehicles on Santiago Street

During the 19th century and, essentially, throughout the XX numerous historical monuments were demolished as a result of the execution of different urban plans designed to try to cope with the uncontrolled rural exodus and the demographic growth of the city during this period, throughout which contributed to the state of ruin in which many of them found themselves. In this way, a multitude of old buildings such as the Hospital de la Resurrección, where Miguel de Cervantes set his novel El colloquio de los perros, convents and cloisters such as San Francisco or San José, churches such as San Julián and Santa Basilisa or San Miguel, including dozens of medieval and Renaissance palaces such as La Ribera, the Gardoqui palace or the house of the Aldabas were demolished to build high-rise apartment blocks ura that broke with the architectural harmony of the city.

In July 1978, the Council of Ministers declared the city a historic-artistic complex, but for many scholars the declaration came too late and had no subsequent repercussions. The architect Fernando Chueca Goitia came to affirm that the destruction of the historical-artistic heritage of Valladolid was nine out of ten.

Urban Statuary

Alfonso XIII placed in 1903 the first stone of the Monument to Columbus

Urban sculpture in Valladolid is led by works that represent illustrious characters who have been remembered in this way. Thus, in 1887, the standing statue of Miguel de Cervantes, in period costume, pen and book at the ready, made by Nicolás Fernández de la Oliva, was installed in the Plaza de la Universidad. The writer José Zorrilla also has a sculpture in the square that bears his name. The founder of the city, Count Pedro Ansúrez, has a monument in the center of the Plaza Mayor, made in 1903 by Aurelio Carretero. The Columbus Monument, the work of the artist Antonio Susillo, and inaugurated in 1905, reminds the figure of the discoverer.

The sculptures that adorn the Campo Grande de Valladolid also stand out, and near it, at the entrance to the Cavalry Academy, the monument to the Cazadores de Alcántara, from 1931, the work of Mariano Benlliure.

Monument to the romantic poet José Zorrilla located in the square of the same name and inaugurated in 1900. It was the initiative of the City Council of Valladolid and the Ateneo of Madrid to lift the National Monument to the vate vallisoletano in their hometown, where they also rest their remains

Far from there, a statue of Felipe II presides over the Plaza de San Pablo; Made in 1964 by Federico Coullaut-Valera, it is a copy of the one in the Plaza de la Armería in Madrid and imitates the model of Pompeo Leoni. At the entrance to Cadenas de San Gregorio street, the iron sculpture The deep is the air, by Eduardo Chillida, was installed in 1982, a tribute to the Valladolid poet Jorge Guillén.

Among the sculptures on a "human scale" are The Comedian, in the Plaza de Martí Monsó, the work of Eduardo Cuadrado; the sculpture of Rosa Chacel found on one of the benches in the West Gardens and which was made by Luis Santiago Pardo in 1996. Other examples are El Encuentro, the work of Feliciano Álvarez Buenaposada, which It has been located since 1997 in Plaza Madrid; the one entitled Candia, located in the Ribera de Castilla Park; the monument to the bullfighter Fernando Domínguez, in the bullring; the sculpture Baile en bronce, a tribute to the dancer Vicente Escudero; or those dedicated to Einstein and Pío del Río Hortega, in the Science Museum square.

Among the new constructions, it is worth noting those installed in the extension of Paseo de Zorrilla: Stage Set for a Film (Decorated for a Film), by Dennis Oppenheim; the Gates of Valladolid, by Cristóbal Gabarrón; and the Sound Shape Column, by Lorenzo Frechilla. Another is the Monument to the IV Centenary of the city of Valladolid, built in 1999 by Ángel Mateos Bernal, located opposite the Castilla y León fairgrounds, on Avenida de Salamanca.

On other occasions, the sculptures share their leading role with water, in fountains such as Los Colosos (Pedro Monje, 1996), in the Plaza de la Rinconada; the Fountain of the Mermaids (Concha Gay, 1996), in the Martí Monsó square; the one entitled Jorge Guillén and childhood (Luis Santiago Pardo, 1998), located in the central roundabout of the Jardins del Poniente; the Golden Fountain (Fernando González Poncio, 1998), in the square of the same name; and others.

Parks and gardens

Autumn at Campo Grande. In 1877 he was commissioned the project of this garden, perfect example of nineteenth-century romantic garden. Its layout responds to a naturalistic conception, of English garden, with roads, lake and river, waterfall and grotto, pigeon and oriental-inspired bird, or glorietas and midwives where sources and memorials are raised

The oldest and most emblematic park in the city is Campo Grande; It is a large romantic garden, located in the heart of Valladolid, devised in its current physiognomy by Miguel Íscar, mayor of Valladolid between 1877 and 1880. It houses a wide variety of trees that constitute a true botanical garden. Different birds inhabit it and peacocks and, recently, squirrels are famous.

After the unexpected death of Mayor Miguel Íscar on November 8, 1880, it was proposed to perpetuate his memory by building the Fountain of the Fame, inaugurated in 1883.

On the old northern branch of the Esgueva, also at the end of the XIX century, the gardens of the West were built:

On the shore of the Esgueva a soto was made, then the channel was narrowed, and there an explantation was formed to which the City Council in April 10, 1863 agreed to be titled to Plazuela del Ponienteprecisely for being in this wind of the city.

Juan Agapito and Revilla

It is a simple garden in the center of which there are two pergolas that house a small square in which there is a fountain that recalls the work of the Valladolid writer Jorge Guillén.

Throughout the course of the Pisuerga, green areas also abound. Beginning in the north, the Ribera de Castilla Park (inaugurated on March 20, 1988), with an area of 12 hectares, is populated with different species of poplars, poplars or lime trees. Following the flow of the water, Las Moreras Park has several walks, sports areas and a river beach. Next to it is the Rosaleda Francisco Sabadell, a small garden exclusively made up of roses.

Other green areas are the Pinar de Antequera, the main natural resource of the Valladolid capital; the Forestal Park of La Fuente del Sol, a historic green space next to the La Victoria neighborhood, the Las Norias Park in Santa Victoria, which occupies the former facilities of the Santa Victoria sugar factory, the Victoria Botanical Garden, which has 30 different species of trees together with a sample of native species, the Fuente de la Salud park in the Los Pajarillos neighborhood, the Canterac and La Paz park in Las Delicias or the Mediodía park in Parquesol.

Bridges

Following the course of the Pisuerga River, the following bridges cross it:

A significant number of bridges cross the Esgueva River. As the river is much smaller and the current configuration is due to its channeling through one end of the city, suppressing its passage through the center and its various branches, these structures do not have their own name, but instead take the name corresponding to the street it crosses. the river.

In the park located behind the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, next to the riverbed, a pond has been designed in which the remains of one of the city's fences can be found.

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  Bridge

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  Rests of the water passage of one of the city's fences on the river Esgueva

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  Bridge Pendant

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  Isabella Catholic Bridge

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  Bridge of the West

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  Arturo Eyries Bridge

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  Bridge of John of Austria

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  Condesa bridge Eylo

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  Hispanic American Bridge

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  Gateway to the Museum of Science

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  Portrait of Doctor Pedro Gómez del Bosque

Culture

Files

Palacio de los Vivero, former headquarters of the Royal Chancellery. The archive of the same is in an old building to this which is now the seat of the Provincial Historical Archive

• The Archive of the Royal Chancellery of Valladolid (ARCHV) is the oldest archive of the city and the only one of state character, since it depends directly on the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. Created in 1489, it contains the funds of the documentation generated by Real Audiencia and Chancillería de Valladolid, the highest judicial instance of the Crown of Castile for the territories located north of the Tagus River, from its creation in 1387 until its deletion in 1834. It also preserves the funds of the former Territorial Audience of Valladolid (1834-1988), as well as the War Court (sixteenth century).XVIII), Social Chamber of the High Court of Justice of Castilla y León, Juzgados de los Social de Valladolid and other legal institutions. It is located in the Chancellery file building.

The church of the former convent of San Agustín is the headquarters of the Municipal Archive since the beginning of the 21st century.

• The General Archive of Castilla y León, created in 2002 is the successor of the Central Archive of the Administration of Castilla y León in charge of guarding the documentation generated in pre-autonomous times, and currently the one responsible for guarding the documentation of the various organs of the Junta de Castilla y León. It has its headquarters at the Butron License Palace.

Palacio del Licenciado Butrón, headquarters of the General Archive of Castilla y León

• The Provincial Historical Archive, located in the Palacio de los Vivero, headquarters of the former Royal Audience and Chancillería de Valladolid, was created in 1932 to guard the heritage of the central and peripheral administration of the province, the notary protocols as well as the historical documentation of town halls of the province and other public and private documentation that entered it.

• The Municipal Archive of Valladolid preserves the documentation generated by the City Council of Valladolid throughout its history. Existent since 1503 with a history in 1375, The oldest document dates from 1191 and retains a good number of medieval scrolls from 1192-1393. In addition to the funds generated by the City Council, it also collects funds from institutions that have disappeared, such as the Hospital del Esgueva, photographic funds, posters, private funds, etc. It has its headquarters in the church of San Agustín.

In addition, due to its proximity to the capital, the General Archive of Simancas is remarkable, which keeps the documentation of the Hispanic Monarchy from the Catholic Monarchs to the establishment of the Liberal Regime. As for the private, the most important is the Diocesan Archive, which stores the funds generated by the collegiate church and later by the cathedral, the documentation of the diocesan curia, the set of parish archives of the diocese and a large musical archive with more than 6,000 songs. sheet music

Museums

The Burial of Christ, masterpiece of the sculptor Juan de Juni, was performed between 1541-1545, and is a very prominent piece of the National Museum of Sculpture

• The National Museum of Sculpture has international relevance, for having the most important sculptural collection on the peninsula and being one of the most outstanding in Europe in its field. It dates back to 1842 as Provincial Museum of Fine Arts, but it was elevated to the category of National in 1933. It is housed in three buildings: Colegio de San Gregorio, masterpiece of the 18th century Isabelle GothicXV which houses the permanent collection, the Palace of Villena, in front of it, with library, temporary exhibition hall, deposit, conference room and a Neapolitan belén, and the Palace of Gondomar (popularly known as Casa del Sol), which has the church of San Benito el Viejo and is located at the end of the street, hosting the collection of the National Museum of Artistic Reproductions. The Museum houses great works of the Spanish sculpture, mainly the Barroco, of authors such as Alonso Berruguete (Retablo de San Benito el Real de Valladolid, Juan de Juni, Gregorio Fernández, Pompeo Leoni or Pedro de Mena, including quality painting —Alonso Berruguete, Francisco Ribalta, Pier Paul Rubens, Francisco de Zurbarán or Luis Meléndez). Some of its sculptural ensembles parade through the streets in Easter.

Interior of the chapel of San Lorenzo of the former Colegiata of Santa Maria, part of the Diocesan Museum and Cathedral

• Inside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption is the Diocesan and Cathedral Museum, opened in 1965 at the initiative of the then Archbishop of Valladolid, José García Goldáraz. Its funds are distributed along ten chapels that grouped dependencies of the ancient medieval school of Santa Maria erected by the Count Ansúrez, such as Capitular Hall, Capilla del Claustro, Cabildo Catedralicio... In its interior there are works from most of the cathedral and extinct parishes of the Archdiocese of Valladolid: sculptures, paintings, orfebrería, marfiles, ornaments or funeral monuments. The Processional Custody of Juan de Arfe, which parades in the celebration of Corpus Christi and its musical archive, one of the most complete in Spain, stands out.

The Renaissance Palace of Fabio Nelli, started in 1576, hosts the Museum of Valladolid

• In the Museum of Valladolid (Palacio de Fabio Nelli), which is part of the so-called Provincial Museums, there are sections of Archaeology that show a complete chronological sequence of pieces of the province of Vallisoletana from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages (such as the Roman mosaics found in Villa del Prado). The Fine Arts section offers paintings of the centuries XV and XVI, flamenco tapestries, orfebrería, of the centuryXVII, Spanish popular ceramic, sculpture and a small section dedicated to the history of the city. There is a project to reform and expand the museum.

• The Museo Patio Herreriano de Arte Contemporáneo Español, important reference in the diffusion of contemporary art, since its foundation, and inaugurated in June 2002.

• Anatomical Museum. Founded 1917 by Salvino Sierra in the anatomical pavilion of the Faculty of Medicine. In it you can admire pieces of natural and artificial human anatomy, skeletons of animal skulls, as well as instruments and apparatus related to medicine.

• Natural Science Museum. It has 5102 pieces distributed by a fortnight of rooms, consisting of essentially scientific and pedagogical criteria. There are collections of Natural Sciences, Botanics, Zoology and Geology.
• Museum of Ophthalmology Doctor Saracíbar. It is a museum attached to the University Institute of Applied Ophthalmology (IOBA) of the University of Valladolid. It bears the name of José María Saracíbar, an ophthalmologist who donated much of the material that can be contemplated today. The museum, created in 1995, contains instruments, appliances, books and treatises of ophthalmology at the end of the centuryXIX and principles XX..

The Museum of Science, on the banks of the Pisuerga, is a design by the architects Rafael Moneo and Enrique de Teresa. Your planetary is one of the most advanced in the world

• Science Museum: built on the facilities of the former flour factory The Palero (only the facade remains) assembles several buildings, which are architectural elements designed by the architects Rafael Moneo and Enrique de Teresa in collaboration with Francisco Romero and Juan José Echevarría. Among these elements are the pedestrian walkway on the river Pisuerga and the tower. In terms of the museum contents the museum consists of a permanent exhibition, through the rooms there are different aspects of science, beginning with its digital planetarium, one of the most modern in the world, which allows to make all kinds of exhibitions. There is a space for the smallest The Children ' s Chamber, in which the scientific and technological contents are intended to be approached through the game. In the Water Room it presents its complete cycle, from its capture to its return to the medium. The human body is also the subject of study, as well as the forces of Nature. On the last floor is the Room 41 4 dedicated to the history of the Cartography. Associated with this exhibition there is a space of the Junta de Castilla y León: La Casa del Mapadedicated to the distribution and sale of all types of cartography and geographical publications. In the Gallery of the Sages, the central element is the narration of the virtual image of a series of conflicts of all times, and in the Invento Gallery, are shown those who have made significant progress in people's lives. The museum also has a temporary exhibition hall, Interactive Room, Consultation and Library together with a restaurant at the top of the tower.

• La Casa del Río: located next to the Museum of Science is the first river aquarium in Spain. It collects the flora and fauna of the Pisuerga in different peceras where you can contemplate already disappeared species of the same as the crab of white legs, the eel or the marine lamprea along with species still characteristic of its habitat: the percasol, the red crab or the black bass. In addition, two terrariums allow to know the amphibious inhabitants of the river: frogs, sapos, salamandras or tritons. As a complement, the Casa del Rio presents several audiovisuals on the life chain or the water cycle, an area of explanatory panels and a viewpoint towards the Pisuerga.

See of the Museum Cristóbal Gabarrón. Cultural manifestations from Prehistory to present times are included in this Foundation. The cover of brass and copper is the work of Gabarrón himself

• The Museo Cristóbal Gabarrón Foundation is conceived as a center for the dissemination of the work of the artist Cristóbal Gabarrón by a retrospective selection of the history of organized art in different rooms that allow a rapprochement to the cultures: Los Pilares de la Historia —Egipto, Etruria, Greece and Rome —, Arte de la América Prehispánica —Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru — Cultures del Congo Negra, Costa Negra
  The foundation's funds also house several historical sections that have been included since the centuryXVI Al XIX: a collection of paintings and religious sculpture, a sample of European painting, and those titled "Picasso Ceramista" and "Collection Obra Gráfica Internacional". Among the most current collections are the Art Museum of Vanguardia (MAVA) aimed at collecting proposals from young artists and space-novo, which is conceived by an international contemporary art centre. The centre is currently closed.

• Museum of the Cavalry Academy. It is created from 1976 thanks to the initiative of several professors of the Academy. Paintings such as the painting of the Battle of Treviño are displayed, due to the brush of Victor Morelli, or the equestrian portrait of Alfonso XIII, painted by Román Navarro García. You can also contemplate white and fire weapons, paintings, military miniatures, uniforms, mounts, etc.

• The Oriental Museum, in the Convent of the Philippine Augustinians, work of Ventura Rodríguez. Starting in 1759, it ends in 1930 with the blessing of the temple. The Eastern Museum was founded in 1908. A first renewal occurred in 1980, and a second in 2005, opening again to the public in May 2006. Collect an extraordinary collection of Chinese and Filipino art since the centuryIIa. C. al XIX. It is one of the largest collections of Eastern art that can be admired in Europe, and certainly the most complete of Spain. This great collection of art is located in this city due to two reasons, Valladolid was the headquarters of the Philippine Augustines of Spain and the second, which, being the headquarters, was where the future missionaries were formed and for this they brought many Eastern materials.

Night view of the Cavalry Academy. In its museum two works by Mariano Benlliure stand out, the impressive painting Battle of Treviño due to Victor Morelli's brush, an important collection of weapons dating back to the centuryXVI or a piece of the plane in which General Mola lost his life during the Spanish civil war

Gothic courtyard of the Casa de los Carrillo-Bernal (centuryXV) and art collections of the Museum of the University of Valladolid

• Museum of the Monastery of Santa Isabel. Located in the church of the convent of Santa Isabel, it exhibits various works of art, highlighting two paintings by Diego Valentín Díaz, that of the Immaculate Felipe Gil de Mena and paintings of the mid-centuryXVII.

• The Museo del Real Monasterio de San Joaquín y Santa Ana (MM Cistercienses), in which you can admire several works by Goya, an elder Christ of Gregorio Fernandez, and an important collection of fabrics and clothes made by the community cistern from 1767.

• Arellano Alonso African Art Museum of the University of Valladolid. In its three rooms, located at the Palace of Santa Cruz, you can see the only museum dedicated exclusively to the African art of Spain. In the Rector's Hall there is the introduction to the collection and featured pieces, while in the Renaissance Room part of its large collection of terracotta sculpture in sub-Saharan Africa is exhibited. Almost two hundred pieces make a journey of more than two thousand years through the different cultures that have used this material in the western part of the continent. This is the most important set, both by quantity and by quality of those publicly displayed in Europe. In the year 2012 a third room was added to the museum, that of San Ambrosio, in which you can contemplate the ensemble called the Kingdom of Oku, with traditional pieces linked to the sovereign and to the secret societies of this kingdom located northwest of Cameroon.

The Toro Museum, next to the Coso del Paseo de Zorrilla, was closed in 2016

• Museum of the University of Valladolid. The permanent collection houses a sample of objects related to the history of the university and its documentary heritage: ophthalmological and anatomical instruments, archeological and religious samples, academic furniture, record books, codexes, buds and authorizations for the teaching of civil and religious studies and a small collection of paintings. You can contemplate a copy of the comments to the Apocalypse of Blessed of Liébana, known as Beato de Valcabadowritten in 970.
  The museum of the University of Valladolid also has three temporary exhibition rooms, designed for exhibitions of young artists, collections from the exchange with other universities or the exhibition of the results of research work carried out by the various departments and institutes of the University.

• Museo del Toro: located in the old lockers of the Plaza de Toros, it was a space that made a journey through the history of the tauromaquia from the prehistory of the bull to the present day. The museum had various multimedia elements: such as graphics, audiovisuals or photographs related to the world of lidia and a collection of costumes and dresses from the Taurian world. It was closed in 2016 for having no visitors.

• Museum of the Sweet Cover: This is the first sugar cane museum in the world. Sugar reproductions of the most important monuments of Valladolid (San Juan de Letrán, Palacio de Fabio Nelli, Castillo de Fuensaldaña, Iglesia de la Antigua, Estación del Norte...) and also a representation of the Episcopal Palace of Astorga.

House museums

During his stay in this house, Cervantes wrote some of his most famous works such as the colloquium of dogs, the Licentiate Vidriera, the illustrious mop, and he would even work in the second part of El Quijote

You can visit three museum houses:

• The Cervantes Museum House. It is located in the property occupied by writer Miguel de Cervantes during his stay in Valladolid between the years 1604 and 1606, which coincided with the publication of the first edition of El Quijote in 1605. The building is also the headquarters of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.

• Zorrilla House. It is the house where poet José Zorrilla was born on February 21, 1817 and in which he continuously lived all his early childhood, and sporadicly throughout his life, as during his return from Mexico in 1866. The House of Zorrilla collects the atmosphere of the time of romanticism in which the life of the playwright developed and has personal memories and original furniture donated by his widow to the death of this.

• The Casa Museo de Colón. After the demolition in the twenties of the building where Admiral Christopher Columbus died, on the street of the same name, in 1968 the current building was inaugurated, a replica of the Columbus Palace in Puerto Rico. It has been refurbished and reopened with multimedia and interactive contents in 2006, on the occasion of the 5th centenary of the marine life in Valladolid.

• The Casa de la India hosts the Casa de la India Foundation in Spain, established in March 2003, opened its headquarters in autumn 2006, after the rehabilitation and conditioning of its headquarters, in a contemporary key. The building is a two-storey house, in red brick, has classrooms for academic and cultural programs, hall of acts, library with reading room and multimedia space, exhibition room, information office and a garden equipped with stage for performing acts on the outside. The House of India, in conjunction with the counterparts of London and Berlin, is a cultural institution created to promote dialogue between the peoples of India and Spain, and to promote the development of their relations in the cultural, social and institutional fields.

Holy Week

On the morning of Holy Thursday the University Brotherhood of the Holy Christ of Light produces this size of Gregorio Fernandez, made around 1630, from the former College of Santa Cruz, where the university choir intonates a miserere, to the cathedral

Easter Week is the most important cultural event in the city, due to its valuable polychrome carvings from the XVI centuries and XVII by Juan de Juni, Gregorio Fernández or Francisco del Rincón, many of them on display during the rest of the year at the Museum National Museum of Sculpture, annually attracting visitors from all over Spain and the rest of the world.

The Ilustre Penitential Costume of Our Lady of Angustia has the touching size of Our Lady of the Angustias (1570), the work of John of Juni

This celebration was declared of International Tourist Interest in 1980, thus being the first celebration of Holy Week in Spain to bear said declaration. In 2014, the procedures began to obtain its recognition as an intangible cultural heritage of Humanity.

During Passion Week, and whenever there is no rain, the twenty Valladolid brotherhoods take a procession through the historic center of the city. The history of Holy Week in Valladolid dates back to the XV century, although previously there were processions inside the convents, where the oldest brotherhoods such as Santa Vera Cruz, Angustias, La Piedad, La Pasión and Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno were born.

Pass of the Descent (1623) of the Penitential Cost of the Holy Cross. The work of Gregorio Fernández, reveals the narrative interest, the crude realism and enormous development of the Castilian sculpture of the Baroque

During Holy Week in Valladolid, one of the main exhibitions of religious imagery in the world can be seen through the streets. Steps such as the Virgen de las Angustias, one of the main carvings by Juan de Juni, The Holy Supper, by Juan Guraya, The Prayer in the Garden, by Andrés de Solanes, The Lord Tied to the Column and The Descent, by Gregorio Fernández, or The Tears of Saint Peter, by Pedro de Ávila, remind citizens of the link between religion and art.

Holy Week in Valladolid is not only distinguished by the artistic singularity and great value of its steps but also by the sobriety, silence and respect that reigns in each act.

Within Valladolid's Passion Week, events such as the Proclamation and the Sermon of Seven Words stand out, transforming Valladolid's Plaza Mayor into a stage that seems to date back to the century XVI and the General Procession of the Holy Passion of the Redeemer on Good Friday that makes a journey from the Last Supper to the solitude of the Virgin and in which you can see the 32 sculptural ensembles more important.

Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi is a Catholic religious celebration.

SEMINCI

Promotional class of Valladolid International Film Week in its 2007 edition

The Valladolid International Film Week (SEMINCI) is held annually at the end of October. Created in 1956 as "Religious Cinema Week of Valladolid", it was celebrated during Holy Week, evolving to become one of the main film festivals in Spain, and the second oldest, with the objective of disseminating and promoting category films. artistic, that contribute to the knowledge of world cinematography.

The festival's main venue is the Teatro Calderón, where the opening gala, the screening of films from the Official Section and the closing gala are held, in which the i>Espiga de Oro, the festival's main award.

Personalities from the world of cinema have paraded through SEMINCI, such as Ken Loach, Brad Pitt, Kenneth Branagh, Ang Lee, Sophia Loren, Julie Christie, John Cleese, María de Medeiros, Liv Ullmann, Abbas Kiarostami, Atom Egoyan or Mira Sorvino.

Events

Penguins, held every winter in Valladolid, is the largest motorist concentration in Europe

Throughout the year, numerous cultural events take place in the city. Chronologically, the first weekend after the Three Kings festivity the Penguins winter motorcycling rally is held, the largest in Europe, in which all kinds of activities related to the world of two wheels are carried out.

Between the end of May and the beginning of June, the Valladolid Book Fair is held in the Plaza Mayor. In its forty-sixth edition, the fair brought together more than 130 authors from around the world. Fernando Savater, Juan Manuel de Prada or Antonio Gamoneda among others have passed through it. Between the end of March and the beginning of April and on the central promenade of Campo Grande, the Old and Second-hand Book Fair is also held, in which more than 20 bookstores from all over Spain participate.

Show of the Festival Internacional de Teatro y Artes de Calle de Valladolid (TAC). It is celebrated in spring and has the participation of companies from around the world offering a wide variety of theatre, circus, dance, performance, music, puppets or parkour proposals

During the month of May, Renaissance Week takes place, with the celebration of a Renaissance market, with the recreation of flavors, smells and characters of Valladolid of the century XVI. These days, La Ruta del Hereje, popularized after the work of Miguel Delibes, is also dramatized through the streets, while restaurants offer gastronomic menus rescued from the century XVI and updated by Valladolid restorers. Also in May, the International Festival of Theater and Street Arts of Valladolid (TAC) is celebrated. The shows are national and foreign, designed to be exhibited in spaces without seats.

The old Convent of the Santa Cruz Diners is today the Las Francesas Municipal Exhibition Hall that is dedicated to art exhibitions following quality criteria and adequacy to this ancient Baroque temple. It has 12 mobile panels that allows about 100 linear meters in addition to certain church walls. Ideal space for sculpture, video art and installations and for painting, drawing or engraving

In spring, the famous and internationally consolidated Valladolid Latino music festival also took place, in which artists such as Alejandro Sanz, Juanes, Paulina Rubio, Julieta Venegas or Marc Anthony, among many others, have participated from 2006 to 2015.

During the summer months, Las Noches de San Benito is celebrated with concerts and open-air cinema.

In 2007 a cycle called Music in the Cathedral was created, taking advantage of the acquisition of an Allen electronic organ to the detriment of the old cathedral organ built in two phases (1904 and 1932) by Aquilino Amezua and Leocadio Galdós and which is a valuable instrument with three keyboards and a pedal and 36 sets, in a romantic-symphonic style.

The first edition of the Valladolid Sculpture Biennial, of contemporary sculpture, was held in 2007, which to a certain extent complements the city's National Museum of Sculpture.

Finally, the Patron Saint Festivities of San Pedro Regalado are celebrated in the middle of spring —May 13—, with a short celebration in which the medieval market, gastronomy and music are the main protagonists and, then, the Fair and Festivities of Our Lady of San Lorenzo that are celebrated at the beginning of September whose central day is September 8, the feast of the patron saint. The program gives way to various musical performances, theater, gastronomic fairs, bullfights, craft appointments, fireworks or exhibitions among other activities. During this festive week, the Day Fair, the concerts in the Plaza Mayor, the regional gastronomic booths, the Trade Fair or the Fireworks stand out.

The City of Valladolid National Pinchos and Tapas Contest, held since 2005, brings together representatives of all the autonomous communities of Spain around the most characteristic discipline of Spanish gastronomy: the preparation of tapas and pinchos. The meeting takes place in the first half of November. Top-level specialists and the Valladolid hotel industry itself participate in it, which offers, in its establishments, the creations of the finalists. In addition, at the beginning of June the Provincial Tapas and Pinchos Contest is held. Since 2018, the Conexión Valladolid Music Festival has been held in June, on the grounds of the Antigua Hípica Militar.

The Millennium Square is a new space in Valladolid, next to the Pisuerga River, with multiple options in terms of events to develop, among others the Book Fair or the National Pinchos and Tapas Contest

The Valladolid Fair has a fairground made up of four covered pavilions, an auditorium, a congress center, conference rooms and open-air spaces, where it is possible to celebrate any type of fair activity. Different events or shows take place throughout the year: The International Trade Fair held during the month of September, INTUR (Inland Tourism Fair), Expobioenergía (Bioenergy Technology Fair), AR&PA (Heritage Restoration and Management Biennial), Alimentaria (Food Show) (Biennale) or Agraria (of agricultural machinery) among others. The Congress Center is another scenario for the development of different professional activities. It is a set of versatile rooms with capacities ranging from 60 to 240 seats, an auditorium with capacity for 600 people equipped with the necessary technology to meet the demands of this type of meeting, and pavilions that can accommodate up to 10,000 people..

Since 1946 the giant dolls of El Uncle Tragaldabas and La Tía Melitona have engulfed thousands of Vallisolete children during the Ferias y Fiestas de la Virgen de San Lorenzo held during the month of September

There are around thirty public exhibition halls that, throughout the year, exhibit in Valladolid the different samples of artistic creativity both from Valladolid artists and from other points, Spanish or foreign, from current or previous times. The Headquarters of the Municipal Foundation of Culture, the Municipal Hall of Las Francesas, located in the church of the old convent of Las Francesas, the modern Millennium Dome, the Hall of San Benito dedicated since 1994 exclusively to photography with international projects in its the vast majority, or the Passion Room, in the conditioned space of the old baroque church of the Cofradía de la Pasión, dedicated to painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving, video design, and other plastic arts. Also the Exhibition Hall of the Calderón Theater, dedicated to the presentation of works by local artists based on an annual public announcement, in addition to other exhibitions in collaboration with institutions, or the spaces reserved for these functions in the different Civic Centers of the city..

Language and Literature

Placa a Miguel Delibes, installed by the city of Valladolid together with the Church of Santiago, in tribute to the writer and his historical novel, set in the city, The heretic

José Zorrilla is the great playwright of Spanish Romanticism. Among his prolija work stands out Don Juan Tenorio in which he deepens in the universal myth of Don Juan

Valladolid is topically cited as the place where the best Spanish is spoken. This tradition seems to date back to the 17th century, from the reference to Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy (by the way of his trip through Spain, which was reflected in his work Relato del viaje a España) about the purity of Spanish in the city. This fact is taking shape in the promotion of initiatives to the creation of specialized centers in the teaching of the Spanish language for foreigners. But despite this fame, the speech of the people of Valladolid is characterized by diatopic features such as leísmo, laísmo and others typical of the northern Castilian dialect.

Valladolid hosted the II International Congress of the Spanish Language in 2001, which took place under the title "Spanish in the Information Society" between October 16 and 19 of that year.

Miguel de Cervantes, the greatest exponent of Spanish literature and universally known, lived in Valladolid, during 2 stages of his life, the first time Miguel de Cervantes lived in Valladolid he was only 4 years old, after a few years he returned to Valladolid with the arrival in that city of the court of King Felipe III in 1601, during this last stay he wrote part of his culminating work, Don Quixote de la Mancha and the author was in this city when in 1605 this novel is published.

Up to four Cervantes prizes, the highest literary distinction in the Spanish language, are linked to Valladolid: Miguel Delibes, Jorge Guillén (both natives of the city), Francisco Umbral and José Jiménez Lozano (residents for many years). Other prominent authors born in the city or closely linked to it are Miguel de Cervantes, José Zorrilla, Gaspar Núñez de Arce, Rosa Chacel, Francisco Pino, Blas Pajarero, Gustavo Martín Garzo, José María Luelmo, Fernando de Orbaneja or José Manuel de la strike.

Music and dance

The Miguel Delibes Cultural Center has in its library facilities, exhibition hall, an auditorium with capacity for 1700 spectators, chamber music room and experimental theatre room

The Miguel Delibes Cultural Center, inaugurated in 2007, is the headquarters of the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra, the city's Professional Music Conservatory, the Higher School of Dramatic Art, and the Professional School of Dance and Experimental Theatre. In addition, it is equipped with an auditorium with a capacity for 1,700 spectators, a room for chamber music and another for experimental theatre; its openness has been key in musical culture.

The Calderón (remodeled in 1999) and Zorrilla (rebuilt between 2005 and 2009) theaters offer a program that covers most of the performing and musical arts.

The Carrión Theater, reopened in 2013, has been home to the Philharmonic Orchestra since 2014, with an opera, zarzuela and concert season.

The Valladolid Youth Symphony Orchestra (JOSVa) and the Municipal School of Music Band, both promoted by the Valladolid City Council, also have their headquarters in the capital, as well as different private choral and instrumental groups or those dependent on others institutions. In addition, folk music groups such as Candeal or Tradere come from the city, children's music such as La Carraca, and in the field of modern music, the Celtas Cortos stand out, a Celtic rock group from the early 90, and others like Greta y los Garbo, Los Mismos, Triquel or Arizona Baby.

Cinema, television and public life

Among the recognized characters dedicated to the world of acting, great actors such as Lola Herrera, Concha Velasco, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, Diego Martín, Roberto Enríquez, Elvira Mínguez, Ágata Lys, the actress and model Inés Sastre, Juanjo Pardo, Emilio Laguna, Julia Torres, Paloma Valdés, Arturo Dueñas, Enrique García-Vázquez, Álvaro Martín Sanz, Daniel Muriel, Sara Rivero, Nacho López, Fernando Cayo, Ana Otero or the sisters Loreto and Marta Valverde. In the world of television, Patricia Conde, Deborah Ombres and Manu Carreño have acquired great relevance. The former President of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, is also from Valladolid by birth, as well as the former Vice President of the Government Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the former Minister of Agriculture Isabel García Tejerina or the former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz.

Valladolid belongs to the UNESCO Creative Cities Network since 2019, in the cinema category.

Gastronomy

The roasted yarn is a very typical dish of the whole region

Wine in barrels in a winery of the D. O. Ribera del Duero

The gastronomy of Valladolid is inserted in the Castilian gastronomy. The meat and the roasts occupies a preferential place; one of the most typical dishes is roast lamb seasoned with water and salt and cooked in a wood-fired oven (castilian-style roast). They are followed by suckling pig or kid and game foods such as partridges, quail and rabbit, are cooked here braised or pickled. The local cheese is made from sheep's milk, which means a strong flavor at various degrees of aging.

Naturally these are dishes that need bread and wine for their complete enjoyment, two elaborations that have been made in this area for centuries. You can taste dozens of textures of Castilian cereal bread. Of them, the most famous is the lechuguino bread but also the bread of picos or the four stonecutters stand out. In Valladolid you can taste high-quality wines such as those attached to the five denominations of origin of the Valladolid province: the reds of the Ribera del Duero Denomination of Origin, the whites of Rueda or the rosés of the Cigales Denomination of Origin, that of Toro and the DO Tierra de León.

A good dessert begins in Valladolid with the confectionery made by the artisan hands of the convents and is complemented with the coffee from a stew. It can be accompanied by artisan pastries, such as Portillo mantecados (popularly known as zapatillas) or with Santa Clara biscuits, empiñonados, cream fritters or caramelized almonds.

Cultural itineraries

• Camino de Santiago de Madrid, which passes by bridge Duero on its main route, with an alternative route that crosses the urban center, and continues in the northwest direction towards Sahagún, where it joins the French Way.
• Santa Teresa's footprints. Route of pilgrimage, tourist, cultural and heritage that gathers the 17 cities where St. Teresa of Jesus left his mark in the form of foundations. The route does not have an established order or limited time as each pilgrim or visitor can perform it as and as long as you want.

Sports

Felipe VI giving the trophy to El Salvador after winning the 2016 Rugby King Cup final, played at the José Zorrilla Stadium

Polydeportivo de Huerta del Rey

Valladolid is the center of sports in Castilla y León, as well as a first-class sports benchmark at the national level, as it has elite teams in most of the most popular sports, particularly standing out in the city for rugby, with two of the leading teams in the Division of Honor in rugby, El Salvador and VRAC, which together have nineteen National League Championships, thirteen Copas del Rey and fourteen Spanish Super Cups, having historically contributed a significant number of players to the Spanish rugby team.

The most representative team in the city is Real Valladolid, with more than forty seasons in the Spanish First Division, champion of a League Cup in 1984 and twice runner-up in the Copa del Rey de Fútbol. Currently, it is part of the national First Division. The team plays its local matches at the José Zorrilla Stadium, which has a capacity for more than 27,000 people.

Every year, both the City of Valladolid Trophy and the Diputación de Valladolid Trophy are held. Since 2020, it has had a basketball section with Real Valladolid Baloncesto after its merger with CBC Valladolid

Also noteworthy are the BM Aula Cultural, which plays in the highest category of Spanish women's handball, and the BM Atlético Valladolid, created in 2014 and which has played since the 2016/2017 season in the Asobal League (replacing the defunct Club Balonmano Valladolid, which won a European Cup Winners' Cup, an ASOBAL Cup and two editions of the Copa del Rey de Balonmano); the extinct Club Baloncesto Valladolid, one of the historical teams of the ACB basketball league and the two aforementioned rugby teams, the VRAC and the El Salvador Rugby Club.

El Real Valladolid plays as a local at the José Zorrilla Stadium

Miriam Blasco, first Spanish sportsman who won an Olympic gold

Valladolid's sports offer is completed with outstanding badminton teams, the most important being Club Badminton Valladolid, table tennis (Collosa Telecyl), wheelchair basketball (BSR Valladolid), futsal, inline hockey (CPLV), several important canoeing clubs based in Pisuerga and with Club Atletismo Valladolid, which is currently in the Women's Honor Division of Athletics and the First Men's Athletics Division, being one of the most important clubs in Castilla y León. The city also has four golf courses, multiple clubs for football, basketball, handball, tennis, athletics, swimming, cycling, volleyball, martial arts, local sports, hunting and fishing, as well as clubs and sports facilities for other disciplines.. It is also the city of high-level athletes such as Mayte Martínez, Rubén Baraja, Laura López Valle, Isaac Viciosa, Miriam Blasco or Roldán Rodríguez (most of them have already retired from high competition) and young athletes such as Álvaro Rodríguez or Mohamed Elbendir and Paralympic swimmer Amaya Alonso.

Valladolid has hosted several important sporting events, having hosted the 1982 Soccer World Cup, the 1985 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championship, the final of the 1986 European Under-21 Soccer Championship, the Phase Final of the Willi Brinkmann Eurocup wheelchair basketball in 2009, of the European Volleyball League, as well as important cycling events (including multiple stages of the Cycling Tour of Spain), tennis championships, boxing evenings, horse shows, etc. In 2016 and 2017, the final of the Copa del Rey de Rugby was held at the José Zorrilla Stadium with more than 26,000 spectators in the stands, which made it the match between two Spanish teams (El Salvador and VRAC) with the largest audience in the stands. In the vicinity of Valladolid there are also the headquarters of two important annual international motorcycling concentrations: Pingüinos and Motauros (Tordesillas).

The Valladolid Olympic medalists have been: Adolfo Mengotti (silver in soccer in Paris 1924, competing with Switzerland), Marcelino Gavilán and Ponce de León (silver in horse riding in London 1948), Ángel León Gozalo (silver in 50 m free pistol in Helsinki 1952), José Luis Llorente (silver in basketball in Los Angeles 1984), Narciso Suárez Amador (bronze in canoeing in calm waters in Los Angeles 1984), Miriam Blasco (gold in judo in Barcelona 1992), Fernando Hernández Casado and Raúl González Gutiérrez (both bronze in handball in Atlanta 1996), Laura López Valle (silver in synchronized swimming in Beijing 2008) and Juan Carlos Pastor (bronze in handball in Beijing 2008, as coach).

Twin cities

Valladolid actively participates in the town twinning initiative promoted, among other institutions, by the European Union. Based on this initiative, it is intended to establish ties with the following cities by holding cultural cycles, exchanges or sporting events:

Friendly cities