Follow Your Arrow

A construction crew was hard at work on the building next-door this morning. Buzz saws, metal-against-metal pounding, and lots of chatter in between. What a perfect day to escape little Canfranc Pueblo and go to Jaca, the big city 25 minutes by bus away. I ran to the bus, which is often early, but today it was right on time, as was I, and off to Jaca I went. I was working on little sleep (just 6 hours) after another late night and early morning. I had no agenda except to stir up a change of scenery and wander the streets of Jaca’s old town and experience whatever presented itself.

Jaca is a major stopover for Pilgrims on the Camino Aragones, and has been since the middle of the 11th century. Sancho Ramirez, one of the Christian kings who ruled Aragon from 1063-1094, made Jaca his capital. By then, pilgrims had already begun making their way to Santiago, in northwest Spain, to pay homage to the bones of St. James. The story of how those bones got there from Jerusalem, where James was beheaded by King Herod, is a real head-scratcher to the cynics among us. (More on that later). King Sancho, wanting to encourage pilgrims to travel through Jaca, sponsored the construction of bridges for easier travel and hospitals to take care of weary pilgrims, and thus the Camino Aragones became one of the Ways of Saint James.

Jaca has two major sites on the current traveller’s agenda: the Cathedral of St. Peter, built between 1077 and 1103 and the Citadel, on which construction began in 1592 and continued for the next 200 years or so, as these things go. The Cathedral is small by comparison to the cathedrals I’ve seen in other cities, but it seems proportionate to the size of Jaca as a small city. Inside the Cathedral I lingered in the Chapel of Saint Orosia, with its baroque alter, delicate frescoed walls and vibrant painted ceiling. Orosia is the patron saint of Jaca, a Bohemian princess, whose family had arranged for her to marry a Moor. Being the devout Catholic that she was, Orosia, ran away, hid in the woods, was discovered and then beheaded for her defiance.

I did not bother going inside the Citadel which has a military history collection and a collection of miniature tin soldiers. Not my thing. Walking around the perimeter of the Citadel was all I needed to do.

I spent the rest of the early afternoon strolling the streets of old town, window shopping and doing some actual shopping – to buy groceries for the guests at the albergue. Before catching the bus back to Canfranc Pueblo, I enjoyed a beer and a snack at a bar. Sadly, I’ve yet to find a gelato shop that is open in Jaca. This confuses me.