Among the Pyrenean mountains blurred by fog, the stone shapes history and legends through the Roncesvalles Collegiate Church: a prominent enclave on the Camino de Santiago, hostel-hospital and, for the vast majority of pilgrims, the starting point for the Jacobean Route to Santiago de Compostela. This small corner of the north of Navarra, frame in which the legendary Battle of Roncesvalles was developed. In 778, the Valcarlos gorge witnessed the Battle of Roncesvalles, in which the rearguard of Charlemagne's army, commanded by Roldán and accompanied by the most grenade of the Frankish nobility, was defeated by the vascones. The overflowing beauty of its surroundings causes the visitor to stop his steps to succumb to his charm. The Pyrenean enclave of Orreaga / Roncesvalles, northwest of Navarra and close to the border with France, is a milestone on the Camino de Santiago and houses one of the best examples of French Gothic on the Peninsula. In the year 813 the tomb of the apostle Santiago was discovered in Galicia and, shortly thereafter, pilgrimages to Compostela began throughout Christendom. One of the Jacobean routes, which with the impulse of Sancho III el Mayor would become the most important, crossed the Pyrenees through Orreaga / Roncesvalles. In order to serve the pilgrims, in the twelfth century a hospital-monastery emerged in the upper Ibañeta. https://www.turismo.navarra.es/esp/organice-viaje/recurso/Patrimonio/3060/Colegiata-de-Santa-Maria-de-Orreaga-Roncesvalles.htm