In a quiet valley in the foothills of the Sierra de la Demanda, in La Rioja, two monasteries stand one above the other, and between them they tell a story that matters to hundreds of millions of people. The upper monastery, Suso, is small and ancient, built partly into caves on the hillside where the hermit Saint Aemilian, San Millán, lived in the sixth century. The lower monastery, Yuso, is a grand complex of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, sometimes called the Escorial of La Rioja. Together they were listed by UNESCO in 1997, recognised as the birthplace of the written Spanish language.
The reason is the Glosas Emilianenses: notes written in the margins of a Latin manuscript by a monk around the tenth or eleventh century, explaining difficult Latin words in the everyday Romance language that would become Spanish, along with a few words in Basque. These are among the earliest written examples of both languages. A little later, Gonzalo de Berceo, born in the nearby village of Berceo, became the first known poet to write in Castilian, composing poems about the saints in a simple, popular style. Visits to Suso are by guided tour, with a shuttle bus from Yuso; the cave tombs and Mozarabic arches are evocative.
The landscape is green and rolling, with vineyards, cereal fields and forests of oak and beech climbing towards the mountains. Rioja wine is everywhere: the area around Nájera and Haro produces some of Spain's most famous wines, and many bodegas offer tours and tastings. Santo Domingo de la Calzada, on the Camino de Santiago, has a cathedral famous for the live hen and rooster kept in a cage inside, in memory of a medieval miracle.
The riding is excellent, with quiet roads through the vineyards and up into the Sierra de la Demanda, where the roads climb through forests to the ski station of Valdezcaray above Ezcaray and over passes into the province of Burgos. Surfaces are generally good, traffic light. Watch for pilgrims on the Camino, cyclists and agricultural traffic during the grape harvest in autumn. San Millán de la Cogolla is a small village with a few restaurants; Santo Domingo de la Calzada, fourteen kilometres away, and Nájera have fuel and full services. Try patatas a la riojana, potatoes stewed with chorizo, and lamb chops grilled over vine cuttings.