Mave and neighbouring Santa María de Mave lie in the province of Palencia, in the Montaña Palentina, on the left bank of the Pisuerga, where the river emerges from the Cañón de la Horadada. The villages have a quiet, rural character, with traditional stone houses and farm buildings set among fertile agricultural land and pasture. Mave is centred on the Gothic church of San Lorenzo, while the smaller Santa María de Mave grew around its Benedictine monastery, whose remarkable early thirteenth-century Romanesque church is one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in northern Palencia. The surrounding countryside supports cereals, grazing livestock and woodland, with the river adding a particularly green character to the landscape. What makes the two settlements distinctive is the concentration of history in such a small area: the monastery, ancient Roman remains, nearby Monte Cildá and the dramatic Cañón de la Horadada make Mave and Santa María de Mave feel like much more than ordinary agricultural villages.