Villar Del Río: Dinosaur Route and Holiday Apartments
Villar Del Río lies at an altitude of 1,040 metres in a valley between the Cidacos and Rinaragra rivers and along the Dinosaur Route. In the village, the Aula Paleontológica de Villar del Río is an exhibition and educational space that conveys the importance of the ichnite sites in the Tierras Altas de Soria comarca.
Culture
Villar Del Río is the central starting point for the Ruta de las Icnitas. The Aula Paleontológica provides information about the ichnite sites and routes and gives visitors guidance on where they can see genuine ichnites. At the Aula, visitors can also learn playfully about dinosaurs and the animals and plants that lived alongside them.
The Fuentesalvo dinosaur ichnite site in Villar Del Río has a special legal classification: it is included in the BIC declaration as an archaeological zone for dinosaur ichnite sites in Castile and León.
The local cultural calendar includes the festival in honour of Santa Filomena and San Juan, held from 28 to 31 August. During Holy Week, after the night from Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday, young men attach a piece of fabric to houses where an unmarried girl lives; this custom is called “la aleluyas”. In the local “rosco” custom, two or three people walking hand in hand are chased across the square by another person carrying a poplar branch; afterwards, rosco and zurracapote are served to those present.
Activities
The Ruta de las Icnitas is divided into four routes where visitors can see ichnites made by dinosaurs, birds and flying reptiles. For mountain biking tours, there is the BTT Ruta de las Icnitas, a route along roads and paths in the municipal area of Villar Del Río. For planning the day, exhibitions, routes, sites and the mountain bike trail can be distinguished according to their respective formats.
The palaeontological offerings are clearly distinct from one another: the Aula combines an exhibition, educational content and playful learning, while the four routes lead to ichnites. The BTT version shifts the focus to roads and paths in the municipal area. Together, they therefore represent different options around which to plan the day, without equating the individual offerings.
Other Places
Local places include La Laguna and La Cuesta.
Nature
The La Dehesa site preserves the footprints of a large carnivorous theropod beneath the bridge over the Río Cidacos on the road to San Pedro Manrique. An ichnite site near Villar Del Río has a wooden walkway from the car park, as well as tactile, Braille and high-contrast signage for visitors with mobility or visual impairments.
Fuentesalvo has 89 fossil footprints, distributed across 19 trackways and 9 isolated footprints. The trackways indicate a group of at least 11 dinosaurs moving together. Serrantes is a type locality for the avian ichnogenus and ichnospecies Archaeornithipus meijidei.
For the overarching travel overview: Soria.
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