Monday, June 30, 2014

Collegiata Santillana del Mar

Monday 2nd June 2014

Santillana del Mar was probably just a little village until the 9th century AD when the remains of  the young Juliana of Nicomedia who was executed  by the Emperor Diocletian in Asia Minor ( present day Turkey) in the 3rd century  was brought here by some monks to this place in the Kingdom of Asturias. A chapel was built here and under the protectionand promotion  of the nobilities this  flourished into a monastery.

The Romanesque features of this building has been preserved until today. It was originally a Benedictine monastery  but in the 11th century was elevated into a Collegiate under the care of a  community of canons of St Augustine. 

Not knowing that I could have toured the inside of the Collegiate - I had just viewed the building from outside.



 the Collegiate sits at the end of the main avenue of the town





horses and cows grazing in the hills behind the Collegiate

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