Mendexa

Although it being a luxurious room, we were hot during the night because it didn’t have air conditioning, so Jackie at some point opened the large arched doors beside the bed. As a result, I woke up with my bare backside on display to the world just as a coach load of tourists turned up for an early morning private tour of the monastery.

We were up and out in time to get to the ticket office when it opened at 9.30am. We discovered that Yuso Monastery, where we were staying only did guided tours in Spanish (apparently because monks still lived & worked there!!) & the first tour wasn’t until 10.30am. However, for €4 each a little bus would take us up the hill to Suso Monastery, where we would have a 30 minute tour with a guide who could speak English.

A few minutes later we were on the bus with 2 other families & met up the hill by our guide, who took us on our tour of the Suso Monastery. It was a genuinely fascinating tour & the key facts we learnt were :-

In the mid-6th century, Saint Millán settled in a religious site – now the Monastery of Suso – on the flanks of the Cogolla or Distercios hills, where he was joined by other eremitic monks. It became, with time, a place of pilgrimage.

The Monastery of Suso is comprised of a series of hermits’ caves, a church, and an entrance porch or narthex.

The Spanish language was “born” in the Monasteries of San Millán de Suso and San Millán de Yuso, and therefore they represent an essential part of the history of humanity.

Since the Monastery was founded in the 6th century by San Millán and his disciples, this site has been a centre of culture, history and religion for the north of Spain and the rest of the country.

The Monastery of Yuso was built in the 10-11th century and still has 8 monks living and working there.

Both monasteries were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

After our 30 minutes of culture, we were taken back down the hill and to our car. It was definitely worth a visit & if we had more time I would like to have taken the other tour & spent more time exploring the villages in the La Rioja region.

BUT we didn’t. Instead we drove 30 minutes through the region to Haro, the capital of La Rioja to purchase supplies for a camping trip. We bought some food & 16 bottles of wine, some as cheap as €1.19. We would have bought more had we had room in the car.

We then embarked on a 2 hours 20 minute journey through the mountainous Aizkorri-Aratz Natural Park, where we drove through cloud and rain on steep winding roads. It was hard work driving and it made you realise how tough the Tour de France really is, because their riders had ridden the same roads only 2 weeks previously.

We entered the Basque Country, where the weather brightened and around 2.30pm we arrived at Endai Campsite situated on the side of a mountain just east of Lekeitio. As we drove up, we felt a good vibe, to the point where before we had even checked in, Jackie was saying “I wish we were staying longer”.

Over the next 2 hours we set up camp on our allocated grassy pitch & tidied out the car, we then went for well earned beer (or three). Feeling very pleased with ourselves, we returned to our camp for pate and baguette & a couple of bottles of our €1.19 white wine which was exceedingly decent in our place of hydrangea paradise.

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