La Rioja Attractions

The Romanesque/Gothic Cathedral (1180) occupies the site of an earlier church built by Santo Domingo. The free-standing Baroque tower was built in 1767, the doorway in 1769. The high altar has a magnificent retablo by Dami Án Forment. To the right of the altar is a Gothic baldachin over the 12th century tomb of Santo Domingo.High up on the wall opposite the saint's tomb is an unusual feature for a church - a Gothic-style cage containing a cock and a hen. This commemorates a remarkable miracle attributed to the saint. A young man traveling to Santiago with his parents was wrongly accused of theft and was hanged; but when his sorrowing parents returned from their pilgrimage they found him still alive on the gallows. They hastened to the local judge, who was at dinner, with a roast cock and hen on the table before him. He refused to believe that the boy was still alive, declaring that he would as soon believe that the cock and hen were alive: whereupon the birds jumped up from the dish and crowed. The boy was returned to his parents, and since then a cock and hen have been kept in the Cathedral to commemorate the miracle. The most notable of the side chapels are the Capilla de Santa Teresa, with the sarcophagus of a knight; the Capilla de Santa Verónica, with a 15th century statue of the saint; and the Capilla de San Juan Bautista, which has a magnificent Late Gothic retablo.

Opposite the Cathedral is the old pilgrim hospice, the Hospital del Santo, now a parador.

The 16th century church of the Convento de San Francisco has a carved stone retablo (also 16th C.) by Bernardo de Fresneda.

The old town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada is enclosed by a 14th Century wall built by Pedro the Cruel and contains a number of handsome old houses.