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Once again, I find myself with a familiar problem - I will be unable to finish my travelogue before flying off again in mid-January. So I will try and finish the March France/Spain chronicles before moving on to the August Australia tales.
France/Spain 2011
Day 7 - 23rd March - Monastery of San Juan de la Peña (Part 1)
Jaca street
We then drove to the monastery of San Juan de la Peña y Monte Oroel, composed of 2 monasteries - the Old (lower) Monastery and the New (upper) Monastery. Which was incidentally also on the Route to Santiago.
Map of area
Upper Monastery, 17th century
Front
Carved portals
This is why Spain loves the EU - money to build visitors' centres
The presentation of the area was rather strange, with us looking downwards at ghostly (white plaster has that effect) mock scenes, turning us into voyeurs. I surmise that this was the lower layer of the monastery and we were standing on the upper layer - but since everything was in Spanish I had no way of finding out.
One scene
Another
Then we got to be on the same level as the ruins.
Bodega (Warehouse)
The signs pointed us out through a door marked "Emergency Exit"
Escalera (Staircase - ???)
Baking bread
I assume he's a carpenter. He looks like a monkey - maybe it is a representation of childhood illness which hit people in the Middle Ages hard
Hnnng...
Information on the Hospital
We then went down to the lower monastery, partially carved into the rock, which despite being older was ironically in better condition (at least compared to the old parts of the upper monastery).
Swarmed by a Spanish tour group
Monks' bedroom
On the monastery
Courtyard
Mural
High Church of San Juan
More explications
"A reproduction of the Holy Grail, which was said to have been kept in the Monastery to protect it against Muslim invasions"
Noble Pantheon, with tombs of nobility
Arch to what should be the Royal Pantheon
Interior of Royal Pantheon
More information
Archway
12th century Romanesque cloisters
Cloisters from back
Some of the more impressive capitals with Bible scenes:
Jesus forgiving the adulterer
Lazarus
An angel wakes a sleeping Joseph
Valley the monastery looks out over
Valley panorama
Valley
We didn't have time to see small villages. They might be picturesque but once you've seen one you've seen them all. More importantly we had to hit our hotel by 6pm so we had to cheong.
We then stopped for lunch in some roadside restaurant.
They were out of Judias Verdes (Green Beans).
This was called macaroni but was really penne-like pasta with pork
Fish soup
This should be menestra. It translates as stew but this was very dry
Rabbit
This should be lamb chops
We also had pork chops but they looked like the lamb chops
As you can see, the Spanish cook their fries like the British cook their chips, albeit in a different shape and crispier. About the most that can be said about this approach is the fries seem fresher.
House flan, rice pudding with milk, natilla con galleta (translated as Cookie Custard)
This all cost 12,5€ per person. Lunch in Spain is cheap, with their set menus.
After lunch I beheld a city upon a hill
Town on a hill (Berdún)
Fork
At one part there was a nice lake and a ruined tower on a hill, but everyone else in the car was sleeping so no one could take a photo for me.
We pulled into Pamplona for a short while, but even the city centre was quite boring. Either that or I read the "city centre" sign wrongly. In any case we had 3 hours to travel almost 300km to the hotel with the ridiculous 6pm checkin time. So we continued on.
This should be a street sign in Pamplona. I don't know why I took
Sign in Basque! A sign that we had entered a different part of Spain.
Snack we had: tortilla with cheese and ham
Cute road safety sign
They also had "Attention: use engine brake" signs in 6 languages - Spanish, Basque, French, English, what I thought was Portuguese and Arabic. I was impressed, considering how unfriendly to non-Spanish languages Spain was.
A road sign said Paris was nearer than Santiago (our ultimate destination). w00t.
I don't know how the Spanish can be full eating tapas for dinner. Then again maybe it's because lunch is so big, they have no space for a proper dinner.
Virtually everywhere closes for lunch. Damn Spain.