Monasterio de San Millán de la Cogolla

We had overall an easy 8th day in Spain and yet one that was memorable. Our only target in terms of sightseeing was visiting San Millan de la Colguera, one of the most ancient sites in all of Spain. San Millan is associated with two monasteries called Yuso and Suso, which comes from the Latin words for "low" and "high," respectively.

Our GPS set the route to visit Suso first, and we ended up going up a very narrow road up a mountain. We ended up in a clearing within a forest and decided to continue afoot and avoid damage to the car.

This hike ended up being one of the most memorable parts of our trip. We loved being able to spend time as a family!
We were mostly alone up the hill and got in beautiful views of the countryside. We rushed a bit coming up because the GPS said we had 40 minutes before the monastery was closed. Once we got there we realized that we should have visited Yuso first and gotten into a bus to come up the trail. We found a tour guide just outside the monastery ruins, and she graciously agreed to let us join her last group, although we were supposed to get a ticket in the lower monastery.

What followed was a fascinating explanation about the history of the monastery. It was built very early on, and it started with a hermit who was known for his ability to heal people, taking over a cave on the hill as living quarters. The monastery was built around the cave and exhibited different styles of architecture as the building expanded and was occupied by different groups. We saw a set of 6 arches that showed the change from romanic to moorish inspired motifs on the same structure. It is impressive to think of people traveling through this land long before the invention of modern technology and occupying these spaces. In a rather comical note, the building also has bricks full of dogs' pawprints, which were the result of people preparing the building materials on site with dogs running around.

After the visit, we headed back to our car, this time more leisurely. However, Oliver was walking close to a fence when he accidentally fell down a small creek. He didn't hurt himself but got really scared, and we carried him halfway before he said he wanted to be brave and strong and keep walking by himself. Once we got to the car, we headed down the hill into San Millan.Okumaya devam et