San Juan de Ortega

A fine example of late Romanesque architecture from the 12th and 13th centuries, built by or under the direction of San Juan de Ortega himself. The three original apses date from the saint's own lifetime. In the 15th century, Queen Isabella the Catholic commissioned Juan de Colonia, the architect behind Burgos Cathedral, to add Gothic arches to the nave. The illustrated capitals and the beautiful Romanesque tomb of the saint in the crypt are worth lingering over.

As you walk past the village of Atapuerca, you are walking through a landscape that humans have inhabited for nearly a million years. Long before anyone walked to Santiago, long before Christianity, long before recorded history, people lived, hunted, and died on this exact ridge. The Camino puts many things in perspective, but Atapuerca puts the Camino itself in perspective.

San Juan de Ortega is a monastery, an albergue, a hamlet of about a dozen houses, and nothing else. There are no shops, no traffic, and on a quiet afternoon very few people. The isolation is part of the point. San Juan chose this spot precisely because it was remote and inhospitable. Sit on the stone wall outside the church and let the quiet settle around you.

The monastery has a long tradition of serving garlic soup (sopa de ajo) to pilgrims. This simple Castilian dish of bread, garlic, paprika, and egg has warmed countless walkers after cold days in the Montes de Oca. The first bar you reach in the hamlet is generally the better of the two. Order it with bread and a glass of red wine.

Twice a year, at the spring and autumn equinoxes (around 20 March and 23 September), a single shaft of the setting sun enters through a window in the apse and precisely illuminates the carved capital depicting the Annunciation. The light moves slowly across the scene from the angel's greeting to the birth of Christ. The phenomenon lasts only a few minutes but leaves a profound impression. If you are walking during equinox week, time your arrival to witness it at around 5pm solar time.