Spain's smallest city: 'Urban' life in open countryside

CITY life: Convenient and exciting, or busy and stressful, with great shopping and entertainment on the doorstep and excellent transport links, or noisy and polluted and full of traffic jams. For some people, their worst nightmare, but others would say they couldn't bear to live anywhere else and would be bored stiff in a peaceful, rural environment.

But the term 'city' is relative. The standard definition is based upon inhabitant numbers – typically upwards of 100,000 or 250,000 – and, in Spain, a provincial capital is automatically a city.

In some cases, the provincial capital is not, in fact, the largest municipality in terms of resident numbers – Asturias' capital is Oviedo, and its biggest municipality is Gijón; the capitals of the provinces of Cádiz and of Pontevedra, of the same names, are smaller in population than Jerez de la Frontera, in the former, and Vigo, in the latter.

Some very small cities in Spain

And some provincial capital cities are barely the size of a small market town. Teruel – the southernmost province of the land-locked north-eastern region of Aragón – has just 36,240 inhabitants in its capital of the same name, although this makes it far and away a booming metropolis. Of its 236 municipalities, nearly 40% have 100 or fewer residents (16% have 50 or fewer), more than 62% have 200 or fewer residents, and barely 8% of them have 1,000 or more inhabitants.

Soria, in Castilla y León to the north-west of the centre, is another provincial capital whose headcount barely breaks the 40,000 barrier, and 16 of Spain's 52 capitals do not even make it into six figures.

City or town?

Only Madrid and Barcelona have over a million people living in their main urban hubs – not counting the wider metropolitan zones – whilst Spain's third-largest city, Valencia, is home to around 780,000. 

Sevilla, Zaragoza and Málaga, in that order, all have over half a million, and the top 20 are all home to over 200,000 – the smallest of these being Almería, with 200,753.

In some countries, whether or not a municipality is classed as a town, village or city depends upon its historic charter status. In the UK, for example, it is perfectly possible to live in a 'town' which has half the population of the 'village' next door to it, or in a 'town' with exactly the same population as its nearest 'city'.

This happens in Spain, too. Madrid, with 3.27 million in the 'city' proper and over six million in the wider metropolitan zone, is the second-largest national capital in the EU after Berlin in terms of the latter and after Paris in terms of the former. 

But it's a town, because its original charter from nearly 1,000 years ago still classifies it as a villa, not a ciudad, and this has never been changed – making it the biggest 'town' in the whole of Europe.

And, incidentally, Spain's smallest city isn't Teruel with its 36,000 or so. 

It's in the province of Burgos, doesn't have a metro network, major art galleries, multiplex cinemas or sweeping boulevards with designer shops.

Yet it's definitely worth a visit – and we promise you there won't be any problems with traffic gridlocks or air pollution.

Frías, a village-sized city

Spain's smallest city, in the province of Burgos – the capital of which, of the same name, is world-famous for what is probably the most beautiful cathedral in Europe – doesn't need an urban transport network. You could walk from one side of it to the other in minutes.

And in that time, you may well have met every single one of its 270 inhabitants.

Whilst Frías does not have the usual 'city' features such as glass-and-chrome skyscrapers, office blocks and government headquarters, it does indeed have a 'city wall', built exactly 811 years ago.

King Alfonso VIII ordered its construction to defend Frías against enemy invasion, with three gateways for troops to escape from in an emergency.

Most of the wall, and the gateways – the Medina, the El Postigo and the La Cadena – are still completely intact, and many homes in the 'city' back onto it. You can walk along the top of part of the boundary wall and wave to local residents in their backyards through the solid stone turrets.

A city tour: Mediaeval splendour in a miniature 'metropolis'

Visiting Frías will not take up much of your day, given its diminutive size – even for a village, let alone a city – but if you're in the province of Burgos, it should be one of your key detours, especially if you're fascinated about life in the Mediaeval era.

Frías, along with Covarrubias – Spain's only known 'Viking village' – are two of the biggest attractions in this centre-northern province after the splendid gothic cathedral in its capital, and the Ribera del Duero wine region, named after the river that runs through it.

And if you've always fantasised about time-travel, it's not mere science fiction in Frías: You actually will feel as though you've rewound eight centuries the moment you step onto its narrow, winding lanes.

A Roman bridge, rebuilt several times in the Middle Ages – when a tower was added - is Frías' typical postcard scene. But the tower was basically a toll booth; the 13th-century version of what you see on some of Spain's motorways today, and which are unlikely ever to feature on future tourists' snapshots. 

The turnpike tower collected a small fortune on Frías' behalf in Mediaeval times, given that the bridge was part of a key Roman road, or long-distance highway, heavily transited and in constant use for trade.

Most of the 'city' was built on the La Muela hill – which is actually a giant rock – but as space on the flat top part is limited, many of the houses were embedded into the sides, giving them the appearance of 'hanging', suspended above a cliff. 

Not ideal for residents who are terrified of heights, but the panoramic view from the top floors seems to go on for hundreds of kilometres, and from the ground, they resemble the much more famous 'dangling dwellings' in the land-locked eastern province of Cuenca, and in Cómpeta (Málaga province).

Even the elaborate, unusual and highly-decorative San Vicente church, Romanesque in style, appears to be balanced on the peak of a rock and about to topple off at any moment; but there doesn't seem to be any danger of that, given how many centuries it has hung on there.

Typically, a municipality of just 270 inhabitants – whether or not it carries a city charter – would have one church at most, but Frías' ecclesiastical roots run deep, and it has as many temples as a town 100 times the size. 

The Nuestra Señora de la Hoz hermitage chapel in the tied hamlet of Tobera, at the foot of the La Muela rock, the 13th-century San Vitores church, and two convents – the San Francisco and the Vadillo – mean plenty of ancient architecture to explore.

But the attraction visitors to Frías are most likely to make a beeline for is its castle, sitting atop the La Muela summit and offering a 360º view of the 'city' and its vast, rural oceans of verdant valleys, mountains and forests.

Also used by King Alfonso VIII as a defence post when repelling troops descending on the Tobalina Valley, the fortress long predates this 800-year-old monarch – it was constructed in the 10th century, with solid, sand-coloured brickwork, pointed turrets and arrow slits, and is one of best-preserved in Spain. Castles built over 400 years later have crumbled to ruined heaps of rock, but Frías Castle is almost completely intact, barely altered in over a millennium. 

It's now open to the public five days a week – Wednesdays to Fridays inclusive, from 11.00 to 18.00, and weekends from 11.00 to 19.00, with no midday closure.

And it won't exactly break the bank – entrance is just €2 a head, and children under five get in free.

So, how did it become a city?

Curiously, and although Frías' architectural, ecclesiastical and defensive heyday seemed to be in the Middle Ages, it wasn't even a city back then. Frías was, indeed, a strategic trading hub, given its central location and good roads, but its 'city' charter was not conferred on it until the 15th century.

According to local history, it was King Juan II of Castilla who gave Frías its lofty status – but only because he wanted to get his hands on another municipality.

Peñafiel, in the neighbouring province of Valladolid, was bigger, wealthier and more important, and was under the rule of Pedro Fernández de Velasco, Count of Haro; by making Frías a city, it suddenly became a more attractive 'payment' for Peñafiel, meaning the monarch was able to conduct a straight swap.

When you say 'detour', how far out of my way is it really?

If you're just popping into the province of Burgos for a short day trip, and given that Burgos cathedral is certain to be your number one must-see attraction, then Frías is quite a hike.

But we strongly recommend making at least a long weekend of it, visiting the wine region, the Viking village of Covarrubias, and Frías, as a minimum.

Frías is about an hour and 10 minutes from Burgos city, either along the AP-1 motorway or the N-I single-carriageway inter-provincial highway, or approximately 86 kilometres north-east.

Covarrubias is about 37 kilometres south-east of Burgos, so you couldn't feasibly see both Mediaeval villages and the city cathedral in one day. Ideally, you would need at least three, but you could just about manage an express tour in two very long days.