San Juan de la Peña

From Puerto de Oroel a mountain road runs 11km/7mi west to the monastery of San Juan de la Peña (alt. 1,115m/3,658ft), magnificently situated in wooded country under an overhanging wall of rock. The monastery was founded in the ninth century but in its present form dates mainly from the 10th-12th centuries. From that period date the chapterhouse (10th century), the Mozarabic crypt (originally the lower church; dating in part from the ninth century) and the upper church, which was consecrated in 1094. In the sacristy of this church is the burial-place of the kings of Aragon, which was given its present form in the 18th century. Among those buried here are King Ramiro I and King Sancho Ramírez, and also, it is said, Doña Jimena, the Cid's