Puente la Reina

The area around Puente la Reina shows signs of early human settlement, and the Roman town of Andelos stood nearby at Mendigorria. The town itself grew from a Basque hamlet called Garesch or Garez, meaning "wheat fields", when King Alfonso I el Batallador granted land to Frankish settlers along the Arga river. In 1122 they received the Fuero de Estella, a formal charter of rights.

The Camino de Santiago drove the town's growth: the 12th-century writer Aymeric Picaud noted in the Liber Sancti Iacobi that Puente la Reina (Pons Regine) was the point where the French and Jaca routes converged. The Knights Templar had a documented presence here, Alfonso I had left them his territories, though that will was rejected when Navarra separated from Aragón. The Templars' local holdings eventually passed to the Knights Hospitaller after the Order's dissolution in 1312.

The 19th century brought repeated conflict: the town backed the Carlist cause through three wars, and in 1874 Don Carlos himself set up his headquarters in the Palacio del Patrimonial. Ruins of the liberal army's Fuerte Infanta Isabel still stand on the nearby hill of San Guillermo.

The town's most recognisable landmark is its Romanesque bridge over the Arga, 110 metres long, four metres wide, carried on seven round arches (one now underground) and five pillars. Built in the 11th century, probably on the orders of Queen Muniadona, wife of Sancho el Mayor, or Queen Estefanía, wife of García de Nájera, it was declared a national monument in 1931 and remains the route of the Camino. The bridge gave the town its name.

The parish church of Santiago holds a blackened Romanesque wooden figure of St James, known as Santiago Beltza ("the Black") because it was found covered in soot. The church also contains a Baroque altarpiece, a stone figure of St Bartholomew, a Virgin of the Rosary, and, strikingly, Ming dynasty Chinese jars in the presbytery. The Iglesia del Crucifijo, formerly belonging to the Knights of Malta, houses a remarkable Gothic crucifix of Germanic origin shaped like a Y.

San Pedro church has a neoclassical tower redesigned in 1800 by architect Juan José de Armendáriz. The 14th-century Convento del Sancti Spiritus, the pre-Romanesque hermitage of San Martín de Gomacin, and the remains of the Fuerte Infanta Isabel round out the historic sites. Medieval walls with towers still encircle the old quarter, and two Italian-style buildings, the Casa del Vínculo and the Palacio del Patrimonial, stand close to the bridge on the main street.