Idiomas

• 
• 

Accesos directos

• 
• 
• 

Buscador

Buscar

Active Tourism

• On foot
• By mountainbike

Camino de los Arrieros

Introduction

Between the villages of Artieta and Berrandúlez, in the eastern sector of the Valle de Mena, runs a small path used since at least the fifteenth century up until the nineteenth by drivers from these villages who, always accompanied by their mule-train, were dedicated to the buying, selling, transport and delivery of cereals, wine, copper pans among other products between the villages of Mena, Cantabrian towns such as Balmaseda, Bilbao and Laredo, and those of the Rioja region.

Technical Specifications

A Description of the route

Leave Artieta from the bowling area following a path that leads on ahead in the direction of Berrandúlez.

Once past the last houses in Artieta there is a wash house and drinking fountain on the left-hand side of the path. Continue on the same path, without taking any turnings, and go through a gate that crosses the way, taking care to close it again since it serves as a barrier for local herds grazing in the area.

You arrive at the entrance to Berrandúlez shortly afterwards, on the same path now flanked by two dry-stone walls.

Topographical Map

Other points of interest

In Artieta: important mansions with coats of arms pertaining to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, built by newly rich family returning from South America, or Indianos.

The architecture of some of these houses recalls the stately designs of medieval times and others, while based on the Menes cubic style, have elements of neoclassicism.

Morphologically, many of these houses demonstrate the native, cubic house model, a design that reflects the economic and climatic conditions of the area, and were in all cases principally residential in use while integrating spaces for human and animal use; bowling area, wash-house and drinking fountain from the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth centuries.

In Berrandúlez:cubic houses, typical of the Valle de Mena, from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with paving at the front also dating from these periods.

It is of significant interest to observe how, over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this village has moved towards an entirely livestock-based farming economy as reflected in the house designs which integrate human and animal spaces, in the barns with annexes for the animals, animal-drawn farm equipment and the agrarian landscape surroundings.

Special Events

OFICINA DE TURISMO VALLE DE MENA

• C/ Eladio Bustamente, s/n.
  09580 Villasana de Mena
• Tlf y fax:
  947 141 341

email:turismomena@valledemena.es