Moratinos

Moratinos is a small municipality in the province of Palencia, Castilla y León, situated on the Camino Frances between Terradillos de los Templarios and San Nicolás del Real Camino. The village is known for its traditional underground wine cellars, bodegas, dug into the low hill at the edge of the settlement, their small chimney vents protruding from the grass-covered mounds to form a distinctive ridge silhouette.

The bodegas of Moratinos are used for storing and fermenting wine in the naturally cool underground chambers, a traditional practice found across the wine villages of the Castilian plains. The mound chimneys give the approach to the village a surreal and unmistakeable appearance.

For pilgrims, the bodega mounds are one of the distinctive visual encounters of the Palencia stages, the chimney silhouette against the plain sky unlike anything else on the route.