Day of Rest in Pamplona

 During one particular week in July, costs go up 400% and getting a room in town is impossible, but two months late, Pamplona is charming. Streets are narrow (just image them overrun by terrified bulls and drunk guys in white) with 6 or 7 storey, narrow buildings in pastel colours with black iron balconies facing each other so that conversations could easily be had across the street without raising one’s voice. Shops and restaurants go deep inside, and at nice the flickering lights and lines of hanging Iberian hams are enticing above the bars.

It was not always so. Roman general Pompelo was the one who established the city and gave it its name. Those Romans knew a thing about location. Up high on a bluff, it provides a great vantage point for miles in all directions. Mind you, the settlement of Basques who were living here first probably thought so too, but they had gone by the time Pompelo showed up to the party and built his camp over the Basque ruins. After the Romans came the Visigoths, then the Muslims, then the Basques came back, this time as Christians. Lots of back and forthing, until one of them got fed up and destroyed the place in 924 AD.  Back came the Christians, this time for good.

Four distinct quarters (Jewish, native Navarran (Basque), French, and a district run by the Knights Hospitalier engaged in pilgrim trades) lived in harmony with different languages, different laws and different customs. Well, human beings are never so civilized as that for very long and there were little wars all the time until Navarran King Carlos III said “Enough!” or whatever that would have translated to in 15^th century Basque, and made one city of it. This was cool for a few centuries, then Napoleon decided to make it his for a year or so.

The Pilgrim traffic had all but stopped at this time, and didn’t pick up again until recent years. Now it is full of pilgrims walking along its cobbled streets, visiting its Museum with a fabulous Goya painting amongst its treasures,  viewing the land spreading out in all directions below its walls, and eating in its many cafes.

a fetching bronze hand with dextrous fingers

hip opener stretches were popular
even before Camino walking

rather incredibly good stone carving from the 13th century

 

Goya's Marquis of San Adrian

humourous way to let us know art has been removed

The Cathedral is particularly awe-inspiring, with wonderful carved wooden choir stalls, fanciful wrought and forged ironwork added to chains that used to bind Christians together until released in the battle of 1212 (by the really, really tall guy we saw buried in Roncesvalles), the exquisite carved alabaster mausoleum of Carlos III and his wife Leonor, paintings and gold work and deeply carved wood and shelves of reliquary boxes holding relicts of long gone saints. The cloisters are being renovated, but what had already been done indicated this to be one of the most elaborate cloisters anywhere.

But what this Cathedral had that others do not is a museum that very effectively mapped out Pamplona, and all of Spain’s history along a modern black metal path through various rooms and spaces. Carved out of the path were dates and relevant events with a light shown underneath, so that you literally walked over history as you read about it. There was a large archaeological section being worked on, with a child’s remains found along with a home and transit area, then remnants of Roman life, such as tiled floors and items found, then into a section built in the Romanesque period (about 600-1100), then the 11^th and 12^th centuries (when many of the Cathedral’s parts that are still standing were built). This then led to Germanic and Islamic findings from their various invasions and occupations.

medaeival carvings in modern setting

We arrived at the Middle Ages via a Romanesque chapel, listening to recorded Gregorian music, then along corridors built in the Middle Ages, with carvings and paintings on the walls, as local and world events were pointed out to us at our feet as we passed. At one end we entered a Mediaeval garden with intricate stonework patterns. Back inside were statues and paintings from the 15^th through 17^th centuries lining chapels of that age, finishing with some very modern pieces. We finished with a visit to the 15^th century kitchen, which held a table with a microwave on it.

By this time our so-called “rest day” had taken 10 km, so we legged it back past the tree-rimmed wooden bull ring and rested our heads and bodies. And did laundry.