¡Viva San Fermín! ¡Gora San Fermín!
July has just passed, and in northern Spain one of the most famous fiestas of all took place, that of San Fermín in Pamplona (6th–14th), where the enciero (‘running of the bulls’) every morning is covered by national and international TV. The celebration is ostensibly in honour of the city’s patron, San Fermín, a member…
Galician pallozas (round houses) and the Casa Consistorial (council building) of Lalín
It is easy to marvel at the great architectural jewels of the camino, like the miniature Romanesque temple of Santa María de Eunate in Navarra that echoes the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the splendid Gothic cathedral of Burgos whose Chapel of the Constables is a veritable cathedral within a cathedral, or Gaudi’s inimitable archbishop’s palace…
Domhnall O’Sullivan Beare (1560–1618) — Ireland’s first Knight of Santiago
The most famous military orders from the middle ages are undoubtedly the Knights Hospitaller (who still survive in the form of the Order of Malta) and the Knights Templar (who have no end of occult junk written about them). Within Spain a number of prominent orders were established, most notably those of Calatrava, Alcántara, Montesa…
Easter and Granada
April, the month that Chaucer’s pilgrims saddled up for Canterbury, telling tall tales along the way, and in which the feast of Easter is most likely to fall. Anyone who has spent Easter in Spain will know of the impressive religious spectacles and processions held in many parts. While living in Navarre in 2022, I…
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