Doña Mayor, the eco-hotel where you can reconnect with nature

"Doña Mayor, an eco-hotel in Frómista, Tierra de Campos, invites you to feel the rhythm of a village, to return to the countryside, to empty Spain, to contact with nature. Surrounded by the Castilian landscape, with its Romanesque churches and pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago".

Elena Flor, in her article in Telvatells how, from our charming rural hotel, we invite guests to reconnect with nature, to live a more rural and human life, to discover the history of our ancestors in the land where it was written.

Walking the Camino de Santiago

In the Jacobean year, after the hard blow of the pandemic to this key tourist resource for so many villages in the emptied Spain, pilgrims return to walk the Camino de Santiago. With the hope of obtaining the Jubilee on their arrival in Santiago, of getting to know Spain, of breathing the fresh air and of discovering the Romanesque of the Camino. Frómista has been an important stage on the French Way since the Middle Ages.

Frómista and its church of San Martín

Church of San Martín in Frómista

In the heart of the French Way, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, Frómista is also famous for its Romanesque church of San Martín. Considered an example of pure Romanesque architecture at European level, it was built by order of Queen Doña Mayor of Navarre in the 11th century, the woman after whom the eco-hotel is named.

But Frómista is not only Romanesque, it also has other emblematic monuments that tell us about the history of Spain: the Canal de Castilla was built in the Enlightenment with the aim of linking the Meseta with the Cantabrian Sea, to transport wheat and other goods produced in Castile. It remained a dream, as the arrival of the railway made it obsolete and it never reached the sea, although it was an important driving force for economic development at the time. Nowadays it is a great place to practice sports or simply enjoy the landscape of Tierra de Campos.

Boat trip on the Canal de Castilla

The path parallel to the water allows you to cycling along the 207 km of the Canal de Castilla. Or by canoe along its calm waters with the company Natural Active Tourism. Or walking, along the unknown Castilian Lebagieno Way, in the 11 stages that link Palencia with the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana in Cantabria. A cultural itinerary documented as early as the beginning of the 16th century.

The Canal de Castilla SPA area also offers the opportunity to carry out activities birdwatchingbirdwatching. These zones have the category of protected area catalogued at European level as natural areas of singular relevance for the conservation of birdlife threatened with extinction.

But undoubtedly, the most popular activity is to travel the Canal de Castilla by boat. The Juan de Homar boat in Frómista (electric, so it does not pollute the clean waters of the Canal), crosses the only navigable stretch of the Camino de Santiago.

Romanesque Route in Palencia

"Frómista is the perfect place to get to know the soul of Castile and from the hotel we organise all kinds of activities". This is how Elena Totorica, the hotel's director, explains how the romanesque route is the most popular, but there is a surprising variety of routes in the area: the route of the castles, the Cluniac route, the Roman villas of La Olmeda and Tejada, the route of the marshes, the Lands of the Renaissance, the Great Temples of Tierra de Campos...

Astroesthesia" activity at the 1st Frómista Astrotourism Conference

Despite the slowdown in tourism, Elena has not stopped. The certification of the eco-hotel as a Starlight accommodation to carry out star tourism and the creation of a coworking space and the creation of a rural hotel have been some of the novelties introduced in recent months.

As they explain in the article, "all these activities have a strong back-to-nature character, with which the hotel is very much involved". The "Eco hotel" designation of our boutique hotel is not just a name. Come to Frómista, visit us and you will discover our sustainable philosophy at first hand.