Vitoria to argomaniz

 9/23/25

After yesterdays challenge, we decided to take our time today with an easy day, starting by doing a walk to this town of Vitoria

We first did a brief visit of the Basilica Nuevo,



but then moved on to the older part of town and we wanted to see the cathedral of Santa Maria. We went on a great technical tour of the hows and whys of its restoration which took two decades.





I loved  looking at, and learning about the process that got it to where it is today.

Funny how almost every ancient building that gets to be restored in Europe and Asia Minor, they find that its built on something even older.. 





while restoring this cathedral, they had to under mine the foundations to reinforce them, they found they had dug into a burial sight that they didn’t know existed, and they had to intern 2000 bodies in order to continue.

As they progressed, they found that they were now uncovering a Romanesque Church, something else they had no idea was there.. this has proven to be typical of many anchient sites now being unearthed around the world, makes one wonder????




We then stopped for lunch of a bean and clam stew at one of the restaurants built into the medieval quarter, , before just wandering around the town , enjoying the murals, and before we headed to our night stop in Argomaniz.’



Walking around the town was just fun in itself
The restaurant






Hungry hikers, anyone for chocolate




Time to spoil ourselves a bit, so we stayed at the PARADOR HOTEL in this tiny town.



The Parador hotels are a chain of hotels dating back to the early years of the 20th century. They are all built into refurbished castles, monasteries, and other historical buildings. They were born out of the need for a better hotel info structure in Spain, and the government was ordered to, under the direction of King AlfonsoXIII to create a network of these hotels.



Needless to say, they don’t come cheap, but it is an amazing place, this is the second one I’ve stayed in.

If your gonna stay here, act like you own it 

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