Spain Tour 9: Santa Maria de Lebena

Pre-Romamesque churches. Sigh. I don't entirely blame Cees Nooteboom for this; Spain had these churches well before he started writing about them - and actively promotes them at tourists. But I think he prompted this visit of ours.
A hot day; but only a short drive North from Potes - just back into the Gorge - and there is a hidden-ish turn-off to Lebena. The Church is a few hundred metres from the village, and although they have built a new car park, it felt quite deserted when we were there. Just a couple of other cars.

Mr Nooteboom drives there too. He finds the church locked, goes into the village, and meets an old couple who feed him strong liquor (orujo), and then open up the church for him. Nowadays there are published opening times. We get them wrong, can't be bothered to go into the village and just sort of hang around outside for a while.
It does all appear to have been very nicely refurbished, and there may be wonders inside, but we don't get to see them.

It's Tenth century and "a notable example of Mozarabic church architecture". Lots of people have researched it - and written a lot about it.

But what really excited us in the end were the lizards. Having a bask.

The church is meant to have a mighty fine yew and an impressive cypress outside it. But the yew, I fear, is no more and I got confused about which one the cypress was.


... and so we went away again...