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TRAVEL
Also notable in the cathedral are its High
Altarpiece, Renaissance in style and the
work of Damián Forment, and its Baroque
Exempt Tower, one of the tallest in Spain,
standing at more than two hundred and thir-
ty feet in height, as well as several beauti-
ful chapels such as the Chapel of the Se-
pulchre of Santo Domingo, the Magdalene
Chapel, the Holy Christ Chapel, those of
Saint Teresa and Saint Peter, and of cour-
se the Holy Christ of the Pilgrims Chapel.
Fourteen are the side chapels of this mag-
nificent cathedral. But if there is one space
that surprises the traveller, it is its crypt, co-
vered since 2019 by the illustrated mosaics
of the Slovenian artist Marco Rupnik, which
narrate the life of the saint while incorpora-
ting scenes typical of conventional religious
iconography, interpreted through the artist’s
own sensibility.
The cobbled streets, the arcades and the
noble houses of the town preserve that air
of passage and hospitality. Every corner
seems made to welcome the traveller, as if
the centuries had not altered the essence of
that initial gesture: extending a hand to the
wayfarer.
Santo Domingo de la Calzada Town Hall
View of the Cathedral and its Baroque exempt Tower
Santo Domingo de la Calzada
The Way and the Miracle
Everything begins —as so often in the history of
La Rioja— with the Camino de Santiago. Santo
Domingo de la Calzada was born in the warmth
of that age-old route and carries in its name the
imprint of a holy and determined man. Domingo
García, a humble 11th-century shepherd, decided
to devote his life to easing the passage of the pil-
grims who crossed these lands: he built bridges,
levelled paths, raised a hospital and, above all,
founded a town that would become a spiritual and
human refuge for thousands of travellers.
The city preserves that spirit intact. Its cathedral, a
12th-century church-fortress built over the saint’s
tomb, is a jewel of late Romanesque and early
Gothic, where faith blends with legend. Inside,
beside the sepulchre of Santo Domingo, stands
a surprising stone-and-wood henhouse where
a white cockerel and hen live: a reminder of the
famous miracle of the hanged pilgrim, in which
the birds came back to life to prove the innocence
of a young man unjustly condemned. Since then,
the saying “Santo Domingo de la Calzada, where
the hen sang after being roasted” has been part
of the popular imagination of La Rioja.
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