Sangüesa

The land around Sangüesa has been occupied since the Bronze Age, when polished axes and flint tools were left behind at open-air sites. Later, the area is associated with the Suessetani, a Celtic people of Gaulish origin whose capital, Corbio, some scholars have placed near the present town. In 184 BC the Roman praetor Aulus Terentius Varro defeated them, sold the population into slavery, and the city vanishes from the record, though the reasons the Suessetani shifted from Roman allies to enemies remain unclear.

Roman settlement across the area was extensive, and the finds were notable: an Etruscan-style bronze horse bridle, now in the National Archaeological Museum since 1913, a marble bust of Artemis, and a Roman inscription still visible on a bridge pier over the Aragón river. The town as it stands grew from two nuclei. The original settlement, Sangüesa la Vieja, is identified with nearby Rocaforte.

Around 1090, King Sancho Ramírez granted the first urban core the Fuero of Jaca, and in 1122 Alfonso I the Battler extended that charter to the Burgo Nuevo on the current site. In 1312, at the Battle of Valdoluengo, the people of Sangüesa captured the Aragonese royal standard. King Louis X rewarded them by adding the Aragonese bars to the town's coat of arms and the title "La que nunca faltó", the one that never failed.

Sangüesa's entire monumental ensemble is listed as a protected cultural asset and the town sits on the Camino de Santiago. The saying goes that there is a monument on every street, and walking around bears that out. The most celebrated building is the Church of Santa María la Real, a three-nave Romanesque structure donated in 1131 by Alfonso I the Battler to the Order of St John.

Its octagonal tower is Gothic, but its great Romanesque portal is the real draw, one of the most intricate works of medieval art in Navarra, packed with religious imagery including a figure of Our Lady of Rocamador, and signed by the sculptor Leodegarius. The Palace of the Kings of Navarra, also known as the Palace of the Prince of Viana, is a fortified medieval palace that still retains its defensive wing and crenellated towers. The town hall alongside it is a Renaissance building from 1570, one of the oldest in Navarra.

The Palace of the Marquesses of Valle-Santoro, built by a viceroy of New Spain, has a striking colonial-influenced wooden eave, among the most spectacular in the region, and now serves as the Casa de Cultura. The old bridge over the Aragón river dates to an original commission by Sancho Ramírez. Four of its seven Romanesque arches survive, and a Roman inscription is embedded in one of its piers.

The hilltop castle, the Castellón, is largely ruined but the remains of its keep are still visible above the town.