Guadalupe

In addition to having a rather quaint town centre fronted by an impressive monastery, Guadalupe also benefits from having two of my favourite hotels anywhere...one of which is the monastery itself! Fortunately, despite also being home to a religious order, it is extremely comfortable, serves good local food, great wine, has fantastic views from some of the rooms. I wonder if the monks' cells also have four-poster beds and en-suite marble bathrooms?

The other hotel, the Parador is partly a former palace, partly the former 15th century San Juan Bautista Hospital with views across its beautiful gardens towards the monastery.

Apparently the monastery, the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe, had its origins in the 13th century when a shepherd came across a statue of the Virgin Mary which had been hidden from Moorish invaders half a millennium previously. The statue had supposedly been buried with Saint Luke and had, by some tortuous contrivance managed to find its way here around 700AD, shortly before the Moors arrived. However, just in case you get excited about these kinds of things, the actual statue on display is a twelfth century replacement. One benefit of staying in the monastery is that you can visit the cloisters and other monastic buildings, though not the monks' quarters any time without even having to pay.

It was a place of pilgrimage for centuries, with Columbus visiting after discovering the New World and subsequently grew rich with donations from conquistadors and others who profited from plundering South America. Not surprisingly in today's era of historical revisionism, this heritage is considered by many with somewhat less favour than those over the centuries who espoused the "conquista" of pagan tribes.

Landscape

Town

Monastery