Monastery of Santa Eufemia de Cozuelos

Recently converted into an rural tourism centre and a venue for concerts and other festive events, the church of this old monastery of the Order of Saint James is an exceptional Romanesque building.

It was the church of the old monastery belonging to the Order of Saint James. Its structure is in the shape of a Latin cross, with a single nave, a transept under a tower and a sanctuary comprising three semicircular apses with the largest in the centre. There is a belfry above the gable at the foot of the church. Highlights of the elements still surviving today are the lovely ashlar stones and the structure of the apses, particularly the central apse, featuring two buttresses and divided into three segments containing semicircular windows with archivolts. Also worth mentioning are the sculpted elements to be found throughout the whole of the church: on the archivolts and capitals, on the openings in the sanctuary, on the three pointed archivolts on the south door, and on some of the capitals inside the church. The carved motifs include the chessboard design known as ajetrezado jaqués, animal and plant motifs (birds, lions), small heads, biblical scenes, etc.