Sangüesa

Sangüesa is located 45 km from Pamplona and 74 from Jaca (Huesca). This is a town of medieval origins, founded in the year 1122 in the heat of the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. Just around the Way to Santiago, the main street and artery of the town, will develop a medieval urban planning that has barely changed over the centuries.

Its border situation with Aragon, which turned Sangüesa in a critical point in the defense of the Kingdom of Navarre, and as a stopping place for pilgrims, are two factors that contributed to its development.

In turn, during the Middle Ages, the Royal Palace of Sangüesa was inhabited by various monarchs Navarre. So all these circumstances explain the rich Heritage of the locality.

The most famous monument of the town is the Romanesque church of Santa María la Real, was building at the end of the twelfth-century. This church presents a Romanesque front of great artistic value that, with the wealth iconographic and symbolic own of the Romanesque art, treats the topic of the Final Judgment and the Redemption.

The facade of the church of Santa Maria is a real Milestone in the Way to Santiago and an indisputable point of referente for the town.

But Sangüesa is more than the Church of Santa María la Real, has a rich and varied Heritage. Among other medieval monuments Sangüesa has several churches. The Church of Santiago, started in the Romanesque style, with its slender tower battlement and the image on the cover of the Apostle Santiago on a shell, surrounded by two pilgrims kneeling.

The Church of San Salvador is a gothic building, topped by a tower prismatic battlement. Emphasizes the doorway of the thirteenth Century, dedicated to the theme of the Final Judgment.

In the thirteenth Century the mendicante orders were established in Sangüesa. The monumental patrimoy of the village was extended by the Convent of San Francisco, the Convent of Carmen and others convents today dissappeared.

But the importance of Sangüesa does not stay much stuck in the Middle Ages, its history and art have moments of brilliance that are reflected in the architecture, in the many palaces. In addition to the afore mentioned churches and convents, Sangüesa has many palaces Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque. These incluye the Palace of Vallesantoro, the current House of Culture. A baroque palace with great influence of colonial art.

In the outskirts of Sangüesa, a little over a kilometer direction of Sos del Rey Católico, stands the Romanesque Church of San Adrián de Vadoluengo, a beautiful example of Romanesque architecture.

Other information of interest

In Sangüesa we can see also a curious Exhibition of machineries of former Clocks of Tower, located in one of the rooms of the Convent of San Francisco.

[To visit the Exhibition contact with us in info@gesartur.com]

From Sangüesa's Region we can know other near zones of Navarre, as the medieval localities of Ujué and Olite eastward, or the valleys of Salazar and Roncal in the northern part.

And also Sangüesa is very near the locality zaragozana of Sos of the King Católico (to only 13 K.m), one of the most beautiful monumental Aragonese and representative sets.

[For information on guided tours visit the Tourist Services section or contact with us in info@gesartur.com]