Wed, May 24 - Yuso Monastery at San Millán de la Cogolla

After another great Spanish breakfast of cold meats, endless fresh OJ, cheeses, and breads we set off south, passing the actual pilgrims' way and saw quite a number of people hiking along the trail on a warm sunny day.

Yuso Monastery

We arrived in the village of San Millán de la Cogolla 20 minutes later. We could see traces of snow on the mountain tops, but it was late spring in the valley.  We entered the visitors' center of the Yuso Monastery, an UNESCO World Heritage Site, and found ourselves in a group of around 60 people for a tour of the church. It was in Spanish, very clear but too rapid for us; thankfully, there were English placards around for us to read.  We started with an exhibit of the first evidence of the Castilian and Basque languages in hand-written notes on a manuscript found at the monastery dating back to the 10th century.   San Millán was born in 473 in the next town and lived for 101 years establishing this religious center which has been a monastery for 14 1/2 centuries!

We were taken down two flights of stone steps into an enormous very cold, dark church with a gold-covered altar and a magnificent choral room with an impressive organ. We went up again to the Sacristy, a beautiful light-filled room with huge draws full of robes, hats, and more, I imagine. We also saw boxes of relics that were decorated with carved plates of ivory, and cabinets of huge volumes of Gregorian chants written on calves skin.  It was a great tour even for a heathen such as I, and one with poor Spanish!

Old Volumes of Gregorian Chants, at least 30 inches tall!

The Sacristy

Ivory-decorated  Box of Relics of /San Millán

We decided to take back roads home and drove off further south, We traveled through a crazy quilt of gorgeous fields of every shade of green and yellow, along a river and then up over a mountain pass at 4700' into the wind-swept highlands with only a few sheep and cows, and back down into forests. We headed north on the N-111,back to the A-12 freeway near Logroño and almost made it back without mishap, but the highway divided and we took the wrong branch, but easily corrected ourselves and got to the Parador by 4 PM.

Colorful fields

I walked around town, and returned to try and figure out what has happened to Blogger and posting photos. I think the problem is between Blogger and the iPad - it is really frustrating, but I can use Bob's computer, although the iPad uploads photos much faster than his Dell! But, at least, it works !
We walked across the plaza at 7:45 and entered La Cancela, another first-rate restaurant. We had grilled artichokes, stuffed rounds of chicken in an orange sauce, very small lamb ribs, and Ewe's milk junket with figs! Yummm!

Riverside Village