The Climb to the Castle

The trip up the hill to the castle above Villamayor de Monjardín was totally worth it. One, because it reminded me how much easier it is to walk anywhere when you don't have a pack strapped to you're back. Two, because the castle at the top was fairly cool.

I procured the key from the bar in town, and had the castle to myself. It was originally an Arabic fortress built when the Moslems controlled that part of Spain. it was used primarily as a border fortress to keep an eye on those pesky Christians to the north. Sancho Garcés, as I mentioned, took the castle, and named himself King of Navarra, sometime around 905. From the point onward, the castle was used by the Kings of Navarra to keep an eye on the Moslems to the south. Later, when the frontier was far enough south that here were no Moslems to worry about, the castle was used to warn of an attack from neighboring Castile, a threat that did not go away until the unification of Spain was complete in 1514, under Ferdinand and Isabel. Over time, the castle fell in disuse and disrepair, though The first three Kings of Navarra aere supposedly buried there.

I looked all over that dang castle, and did not see anything that looked like graves, much less the graves of kings. This got me thinking about the world as it was in 925 AD and the world in 2011, and did those kings expect to be remembered? What kind of men were they? Would we have anything in common, were I to meet them on the street and strike up a conversation? What about those who will walk across my grave 1100 years after my death? Would the world be recognizeable?

Many things to ponder as I walk over the next few days. Enjoy the pictures of the castle.