San Millán Yuso and Suso Monasteries

The first written words of the Castilian language were set down here: glosses scribbled by monks at Suso, the hillside monastery grown from the community St Millán founded in the mid-6th century. A Romanesque church honours the saint at the upper site, while the grand 16th-century monastery of Yuso below still houses a living religious community. For the birthplace of a world language and its layered monastic history, UNESCO inscribed both monasteries in 1997.