Covadonga and the Founding of the Spanish Nation
Church of Santa María la Real de Covadonga There are some places in Spain that draw tourists from all over the world—Antoni Gaudí’s still-unfinished Sagrada Família church, the Moorish wonders of the Alhambra , or the Prado Museum in Madrid —but then there are sites that draw a much more local crowd, monuments like Zaragoza’s Pilar Basilica , the royal pantheons where medieval kings and queens are buried, or a monastery where the Spanish language was first written down. The Royal Site of Covadonga, hidden deep within the mountains of the Picos de Europa National Park, belongs to the latter group of destinations. A small, underwhelming collection of monuments, Covadonga holds a special place in the Spanish national psyche for being the place where Spain was born. What happened here? The strategically-located cave The year was 722. Eleven years earlier, Muslim Berbers from North Africa had invaded the Iberian peninsula, quickly overrunning the feeble Kingdom of the Visi...