Jaén

There is a bus line that runs up to the Santa Catalina Castle, and the Tourism office had given us the timetable. Great, there's a bus stop right at the end of the street.

We waited, and waited. But no bus came. We found out later that as the Feria was on, they had cancelled the bus service.

Once we figured out that no bus would be forthcoming, we decided to walk up to the castle. It turned out to be less strenuous as what Jacinto had led us to believe.

Looking at the castle ridge, from the city, one could think that the castle was as large as the Fortaleza de la Mota. In fact, the castle itself is not very large. The rest of what we see on the ridge is taken up by the Parador.

We weren't dressed well enough to have lunch at the restaurant (the polite excuse was that the restaurant was fully booked), but we could eat something at the cafeteria.

After this very nice lunch, we spent some time at the castle. Jacinto had told us the following story. There used to be a church of Santiago in Jaén. It was one of the first churches. By 1784, however, lack of maintenance and very bad weather caused the collapse of the building. When the French Napoleonic army took over the town, they used the stones of the church to build a hospital in the castle. Then as the French retreated, they blew up the hospital. In 1965, the Parador was built, and they used the stones from the French hospital. That's how stones from the church of Santiago ended up at the Parador. And in a funny coincidence, the paper under my French fries had a scallop shell with the cross of Santiago.

Just a few hundred metres further along the ridge, there is a large white cross. It's the only place where you can see the cathedral from above.Read more