Venta de Baños is a village and municipality

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 of about 5,880 located in El Cerrato, in the province of Palencia, part of the autonomous community

Autonomous communities of Spain

An autonomous community In other languages of Spain:*Catalan/Valencian .*Galician .*Basque . The second article of the constitution recognizes the rights of "nationalities and regions" to self-government and declares the "indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation".Political power in Spain is...

 of Castile and León

Castile and León

Castile and León is an autonomous community in north-western Spain. It was so constituted in 1983 and it comprises the historical regions of León and Old Castile...

, central Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. It is located south of the provincial capital, Palencia

Palencia

Palencia is a city south of Tierra de Campos, in north-northwest Spain, the capital of the province of Palencia in the autonomous community of Castile-Leon...

. Noteworthy monuments include its Visigothic church of San Juan de Baños de Cerrato. RENFE

RENFE

Renfe Operadora is the state-owned company which operates freight and passenger trains on the 1668-mm "Iberian gauge" and 1435-mm "European gauge" networks of the Spanish national railway infrastructure company ADIF .- History :The name RENFE is derived from that of the former Spanish National...

 and Grupo SIRO are the principal activities in the municipality.

In popular culture and among Spanish railway travellers, Venta de Baños has traditionally had the same sort of iconic status as other great railway junctions of the world, such as Crewe in the UK. Before the advent of the dedicated high velocity routes and cheaper air travel, it was the principal transfer point for travellers between the north-east and north-west of Spain and the south. Generations of railway passengers have memories of the waiting rooms and cafeteria at Venta de Baños.

The town hosts an annual international cross country running

Cross country running

Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...

 competition: the Cross Internacional de Venta de Baños

Cross Internacional de Venta de Baños

The Cross Internacional de Venta de Baños is a cross country running competition that takes place in Venta de Baños, Castile and León, Spain. The competition was first held in 1980 and since then it has been held every year in mid-December...

. It has featured some of the world's foremost cross country athletes including Kenenisa Bekele

Kenenisa Bekele

Kenenisa Bekele is an Ethiopian long-distance runner, who holds the world record and Olympic record in both the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres events...

 and Palencian-born Marta Domínguez

Marta Domínguez

Marta Domínguez Azpeleta is a Spanish runner. She was accused of drug dealing and but later acquitted .Dominguez currently competes mainly in 3000 m steeplechase, a distance in which she was the 2009 world champion...

.