Santa María la Real de Irache

A Benedictian monastery, with strong ties to Cluny, existed here in 958, after the Reconquista had reconquered the area about 50 years earlier. There are hints, that a convent may have been here already in Visigothic times. The monastery offered a "hopital" to the pilgrims already in 1054, when nearby Estrella was not even founded.

The large church was erected in a Basilica-style within the 12th and 13th century on a the floorplan of a "Latin Cross".

The transept, the visitor enters through the Plateresque portal (see previous upload), is younger than the Romanesquer nave and has a wonderful Gothic vaulting.