The adventure wouldn't be complete if, after visiting the battered ruins of the Monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza, we didn't dedicate some time to wandering the medieval streets of a place whose picturesque charm is surpassed only by the numerous treasures and enticing mysteries it has guarded with avaricious determination throughout history: Covarrubias.
A good place to begin exploring some of these countless mysteries—and rightly so, given that we are in the heroic heart of the first Castilian counts—is the Fernán González Tower. Inside, if you are observant, you will notice, among other interesting curiosities, a reproduction of several banners of the famous leader Almanzor. You will be surprised to discover that the design of one of them, a black and white checkered pattern, might suggest that it predates the famous Templar banner by a century.
But without a doubt, the magnificent Collegiate Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian—twin saints and practitioners of the noble art of medicine, where one diagnoses and the other offers the remedy—will be the unmissable place where your imagination will run wild, not only with the tombs of kings and nobles—such as Princess Christina of Norway or Mudarra, the son of Hispano-Arabic origin who avenged his brothers, the Seven Princes of Lara—but also with a small, yet extraordinary art museum, where you won't be able to stop admiring a stunning work by the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck, "The Virgin of Wisdom," an astonishing and minimalist painting that will leave you bewildered trying to classify the more than one hundred detailed objects it contains.
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