Monjardin, the castle of Saint James’s way
The last day of our trip that we started days ago at Logroño, after all we had more or less 5h of driving from Estella to Barcelona and in spite that Villamayor de Monjardin is not in the right direction, we made a roundabout way to visit the Monjardin castle, also known as San Esteban de Deyo castle, located on the top of the mountain. In fact, we discovered the place the night before meanwhile searching a spanish village for dinner. The village attracted us for the castle and because it was the sunset, we said “it should have a great view, up there”. Arriving to the main square, we went to a bar asking some information and the owner told us that it is possible to go by car and to visit it free because it is part |
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of the pilgrimage and that his daughter just left the square with the key of the castle with some friends. The point is that we missed the sunset because at the moment of the road, there is one way with a panel saying “forbidden for cars” and the other way looks too small so we decided to come back tomorrow.
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Villamayor de Monjardín is a village that everyone doing the St James’s way has to stop and its main attraction, like you can guess it, is the castle but before to be able to visit it, we had to go to the bar of the main square to ask for the key, in exchange we let our ID card.
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To no do the same error as last night, we asked if it is through the forbidden way or the narrow one and the owner answered us “don’t take care of the panel, if you go up by car, it is by this road”.
After some minutes, we were at the foot of the castle and climbing a little stair, we opened the door which is closed with a padlock and from there, there is a 360 degrees view. Half of the castle is destroyed and there is a room where pilgrims can sleep inside or if the weather is good, sleep on the yard under a starry night.
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We also found an abandoned cannon, I’m quite sure that if someone put a bullet, it would fire !!! A good way to announce that you are in the castle but the best, it is to ring the bell, a better pacific way.
The morning ended very fast and after getting back our ID card and the lunch, it was time to take the car and to go home, after all, there was still a long road waiting us.