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Wise Pilgrim APPRedecilla del Camino is the first village in Castilla y León on the Francés, and it makes a good first impression. In the 12th century, two pilgrim hospices operated here — one of them, San Lázaro, lends its name to the current municipal albergue, which has around 50 beds.
The star attraction is inside the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Calle: a Romanesque baptismal font dating to the late 12th century. It's an extraordinary piece of carving — a large stone basin in the shape of a lobed cup, decorated with an intricate representation of a fortified city across four stories, complete with eight semicircular towers, arched windows, and triangular roofs. Most scholars believe it represents the Heavenly Jerusalem, a theme drawn from Jewish tradition that was deeply influential in medieval art. It's considered one of the finest Romanesque baptismal fonts in the province of Burgos, and reason enough to step inside.
The village is small — well under 200 people — but has a bar-restaurant, a small store in the bar, and a tourist information office, which is remarkable for a town this size but easily explained by its location on the route.
San Roque is celebrated on August 16.
Redecilla appears in documents as early as 1028, in the Cartulario de San Millán de la Cogolla. It was once known as Redecilla de los Francos — a nod to the French settlers who came south along the pilgrim route to populate these Castilian towns during the medieval period. This pattern repeated itself across dozens of villages along the Camino Francés, and it's where the route gets its name.
The church was largely rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the baptismal font survived from the original Romanesque structure, making it the oldest and most valuable element in the building.
The walk from Redecilla continues through flat agricultural terrain to Castildelgado (2 km), then on to Viloria de Rioja (another 2 km) — birthplace of Santo Domingo. Villamayor del Río follows shortly after. None of these villages has much in the way of services, though Castildelgado has an albergue and a truck-stop restaurant. From Redecilla to Belorado is about 14 km.
