Aragon Guide

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  San Juan de la Pena Monastery valledelaragon .com

The Monastery of San Juan de la Pena is considered the sacred ground where Aragon Kingdom was originated. Its location in the north-western zone of the Aragon Pyrenees lands near the Echo and Anso valleys, the territory which became the Kingdom of Aragon in the ninth century near the Siresa Monastery, and close to the city of Jaca, the first capital of the Aragonese Kingdom from the 11 century.

As a result of the Muslim invasion around 720, a group of hermits retired to this hidden corner of the Pyrenees and created a centre of hermitic life which survived until the tenth century. In the same location, Sancho el Mayor de Navarra created the Monastery of San Juan de la Pena. In 1071 the former Spanish-Visigoth Christian rite was celebrated for the last time in Spain giving way to the rites of the Romanic Church. The famous French traveler describe it in the 19 century like "A spacious lighted vault, like a subterranean sky, carved in granite, opened up before our eyes, drawn to that colossal curvature that we might have mistaken it for a curve of the firmament." A Spain National Monument since 1889, this is a convergence point for some exceptional natural, historical and cultural resources located on the site of the most important Monastery in the Aragon Pyrenees, reference site of the Camino de Santiago or Saint James Way, and starting point in the Saint Grial route.

Located under escarped mountains and protected by an enormous covering of rock, its simple shape is an exceptional example of perfect harmony with the surrounding natural environment. Discover the old Romanesque cloister Founded in the year 920 and the Royal Pantheon of the Kings of Aragon . This mausoleum contains the tombs of monarchs and nobility from Aragon and Navarra kingdoms, who made generous donations on the condition that they would be buried here, since 11th century. after the first King of Aragon, Ramiro I, was buried here.