Kings adventures: Sunday September 3rd 2017

Jim and I are inclined to visit cities on a Sunday as we believe the traffic is less intense and it is easier to get parking. Jaca is just over a half hour from Tramacastilla de Tena so that was our destination. we got underground parking easily enough and we were very close to the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle and to the Citidel. The Cathedral was the first Romanesque Cathedral in Spain and is considered one of Spain's most important Romanesque monuments.

Next was the Citadel just a short walk away. This pentagonal citadel was built in the late 16th century and it contains all of its characteristic features - dry moat (now grazed by deer), bastions, scarps, barracks, powder magazines, tunnels and a beautiful entranceway reached by crossing the drawbridge.

In one of its barracks the citadel houses a Military Miniatures Museum which we know Stephen would have loved.

Our final visit in the Citadel was to the Church.

And goodbye to the deer!

We had lunch at a restaurant - 12 euro each for 3 course - beans and sausage for me; paella for Jim. Entrecote for Jim and pork cheek for me - really nice. Then lemon mousse for Jim and crème caramel for me. Very reasonable.

We could have explored more in Jaca but I had a hankering to get into the countryside again so we took the advice of the woman in the tourist office and headed for San Juan de la Pena. This involved going west on the N240 and then turning left towards Santa Cruz de la Seros and on up a very twisty road to the Monumento Natural de San Juan de la Pena. The monasteries of San Juan were inhabited by Benedictine monks until 1835. We followed the twisty road, passing the Old Monastery built beneath a large rock, as far as the Upper Monastery dedicated to St. John the Baptist. From there we took the shuttle bus back down to the lower monastery.

The written guide talked about prisoners(?) being put in this space under the dripping water to be tortured.

We went back on the shuttle to the Upper Monastery where we went to the Visitor Centre which is built on the ruins of the New Monastery part of which has been designed using 21st century techniques to show the different aspects of San Juan de la Pena from its inception until the departure of the last monks in the 19th century. The design leads visitors over a glass floor where underneath is the layout of the original monastery with bedrooms, kitchen, apothecary etc. decorated with life-sized figures of monks, furniture and utensils to give the scale of the original monastery. There are lots of information panels but my limited Spanish (Hola, Buenos dias, Buenos tardes, Buenos noches, Gracias) was no help. I look forward to the day when there is some technological device that allows instant and good translation - I'm sure someone somewhere is in the process of designing it!