This majestic fortress in the vicinity of Loarre, 1,071 metres high and only 30 km from Huesca, is considered to be Europe’s best-conserved Romanesque castle. It sits on a rocky ridge and includes several buildings that are mostly well-conserved. Amongst these you can see the walls and towers, the fortress, the homage tower and the queen’s look-out (with splendid views over the mountain range and the plains at the foot of the hills). You can also see other religious buildings, for example, the church and the crypt.
Erected in the XI century it was highly important to King Sancho III the Elder in the Christian Reconquest from the Moslems of this Flat Land or Plain (hence the name Plana de Uesca). During the High Middle Ages the Loarre castle and the nearby Marcuello castle were both strategically significant in the Aragonese defence system, faced as they were with the iron strength of the Moslems in Bolea.
Its beauty, uniqueness, its excellent state of conservation and enviable position has, on numerous occasions, made it a scenic choice for films and documentaries, some of them known world-wide such as “Kingdom of Heaven” directed by Ridley Scott.
There is a Reception Centre for visitors with a coffee bar, a souvenir shop and tourist information. The audiovisual documentary about the castle and its era helps the visitor to understand the strategic role it played in the advance of the Kingdom of Aragon towards the south.
This is a Gothic temple built over the ancient Moslem Mosque. Jaime I the Conqueror ordered its construction in 1273. The entrance is sculpted in the greatest detail and protected by large eaves, typically Aragonese. The eaves were carved in wood and added to the entrance in the XVI century. The lower part comprises different primitive Gothic styles (XIII), and the more flamboyant Gothic style is used for the upper part (XVI). The façade is outstanding for its splendid decoration crowned by pinnacles. The main entrance door has seven pointed arches all sculpted. You can see images of the Virgin and the Christ Child on the tympanum. The Cathedral has three naves, transept and apse, and the tower on the façade is square terminating in an octagonal design.
The inside is luminous. The lateral naves, lower in height than the central one, have 14 chapels. The Rosary chapel with its Gothic altar is one of the most outstanding. It gives onto the old sacristy and, from there, to the Cathedral archives where you will find incunabula from the XI to the XVI centuries. The chapels of Lastanosa – patron of Baltasar Gracián – and the Saintly Christ of the Miracles – whose miracles towards the end of the XV century cured the city of a plague, are both of interest. However, one of the most valuable pieces is its high altar with an extremely beautiful Renaissance altarpiece (1520 to 1534), an alabaster masterpiece sculpted by Damián Forment which represents the Passion of Christ.
Next door to the Cathedral is the Diocesan Museum, installed in the ancient Cloister and Episcopal Palace. Within the Museum there are rooms with exhibitions of gold and silverware in the ancient chapterhouse at the end of the temple, and those with Mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque art, off the Transept.
Declared in 1885 as a National Monument, it is a pure sample of Aragonese Romanesque architecture and one of the two architectonic jewels of the monumental heritage in the city and of Upper Aragon. It is situated in the ancient district of the city and was erected over what used to be a temple in the Mozarab quarter of the Moslem city. In 1117 it was donated to the Benedictine Order and it was then that works began on the monastery in the Romanesque style that we can admire today.
The tympanum over the northern entrance is valuable. It shows a magnificent monogram of the Trinity supported by two beautiful angels. The monogram is a common feature of Aragonese Romanesque churches; it is Christ’s monogram and it is accompanied here by the alfa and omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. The reference is to a Christ who is the Beginning and the End of all things.
The church has three naves covered with high fluted vaults. The choir stalls date from 1506. In the interior there are XIII century French-Gothic paintings.
One of the most beautiful and well-known parts of this church are the cloisters dating from 1149, although they were restored in the XIX century. The carved Romanesque capitals are exceptional. 18 of them are original and the rest are faithful reproductions of the original Romanesque ones done in the XIX century. They represent the life of Jesus Christ, as well as other historical and allegorical motifs, particularly the capital depicting a female dancer; the movement in this sculpture is most unusual for its period. The chapel of San Bartolomé is in the same cloister, with the Royal Pantheon containing the remains of the kings Alfonso I “The Fighter” and Ramiro II “The Monk”, author of the gory Mediaeval legend of the Huesca Bell.
Bolea, situated on a promontory intercepting the countryside with a commanding position over the plain, is enhanced at its highest point by the Santa María Collegiate. There is a magnificent view of the homes clustered around it on the hind slope facing the Gratal peak, and Bolea invites us to wander through its richly historical streets. It used to be a Roman possession, then called Calagurris Fibularia; it later passed into Moslem hands and was called Buluya, until King Pedro I made it part of the Christian kingdom of Aragon in 1101.
The collegiate was built by Pedro de Irazábal between 1541 and 1559. The current building was constructed over an ancient XII century Romanesque temple, of which the crypt beneath the presbytery, the head wall and the belfry tower still stand. It has three naves separated by a varied repertory of clustered pillars from XII century chapels, that come from an ancient Arab fortress. The entire temple is level in height and this gives it a pleasant, quite surprising, diaphanous effect.
But the most valuable jewel in this temple is the high altarpiece. It is a work of art combining sculpture and painting from the XVI century (1490 to 1503) in Gothic Mudejar, and belonged to the previous temple. It is composed of 20 panels painted in tempera and 57 sculptures carved in polychrome wood, cypress, walnut, cherry wood and Flanders pine. The paintings, executed by a famous painter from Bolea, are outstanding. Bolea offers important novelties in the Spanish pictorical art of the era influenced by Flemish and Italian artists, such as the expression of the characters’ feelings, the domination of space and perspective, light and shade. The colours, with their wide range of reds and greens, are most original.
Apart from many other altarpieces in this temple, you should stop to admire the view of La Hoya from here, letting history permeate your gaze with the remains of the Roman and Arabic past of these lands, on which successive generations have also left their own imprint.
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