Monasterio de Veruela

Leave Tarazona on N 122, going southeast, and at Vera de Moncayo take a road on the right to the Monasterio de Veruela. This imposing monastery, surrounded by a battlemented wall, was begun by the Cistercians in the 12th Century and completed in the 15th. The poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-70) lived for some years in the monastery while writing his ''Letters from my Cell'', a poetic journey through the landscape of Aragon. The transition from Romanesque to Gothic is reflected in the architecture of the monastery, and the Gothic cloister is a good example of the Cistercian style. It contains abbots' tombs and, in the chapterhouse, a small museum of modern art.