Hermitage of the Virgen de los Navarros

Some places are better understood through what they mean to local people than through what their stones have to tell. The hermitage of the Virgen de los Navarros, in the Teruel town of Fuentes Claras, is one of them. Visitors who make their way here will find a Catholic church that is the focus of the town's principal devotion, a fervour that the inhabitants themselves trace back to time immemorial – so old that no one could say exactly when it began.

Its status as a beloved, close-knit sanctuary is the best key to visiting it. This is not a building set apart from everyday life, but a point of reference for the whole community, so much so that it shares the limelight with the parish church as one of the town's two great places of worship. Rarely does a hermitage carry such weight in the religious life of a village, and that says a great deal about how deeply the Virgen de los Navarros is rooted among the people of Fuentes Claras.

The very name of the dedication piques the traveller's curiosity, inviting you to pause, ask questions and listen to the stories told locally. It is well worth visiting at an unhurried pace, with the attentive eye of someone who knows that the small rural churches of Aragon preserve much of the collective memory of their people.

Rounding off a visit to Fuentes Claras with a tour of its two main churches – the parish church and this hermitage – helps you understand how the town's spiritual life has been shaped over generations. It is a simple stop, but a deeply meaningful one for those seeking more than monuments: the heartbeat of a devotion that remains alive at the heart of the province of Teruel.