According to Wiki, a necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground usually including structural tombs. The term is usually used for high burial grounds near the centers of ancient civilizations.This word was derived from Greek meaning “city of the dead”. I know it’s rather late talking about this right now because the Halloween season has already passed but since I’m terribly out of trend (haha!), here are some photos taken from our summer and winter travels. Yep, we’re that weird, we go to spooky places too.

So last summer, while visiting the vineyards in La Rioja-Alavesa, we made a detour to this 12th century Romanesque church high up in the hills.

In front of the church, you’ll find this ancient necropolis or what was left of it from centuries ago. I’m stepping on the tombs, yikes! Don’t worry all the remains have been removed and are now kept in some museum somewhere.

Then we visited some dolmens too. A dolmen (here goes the geek again…) is a Neolithic tomb or monument consisting of a large flat stone laid across upright stones. This is also called a cromlech and is found in Ireland, France, Russia, Portugal, here in Spain and even in Korea, India, Israel, Syria and Jordan.

Dolmen de La Chabola, Elvillar (La Rioja,Alavesa)

These are more than a thousand year old burial sites. A lot of artifacts have been presumably buried here but sad to say that a lot of them have also been robbed before the dolmens were discovered. This picture was taken July of this year  while the one below was from early winter of last year.

I’m wearing a thick turtleneck for this one. Below is another dolmen found from another place.

It’s quite tricky finding some of these. I think we got lost twice or thrice because they are sometimes situated on some dirt road somewhere. hehe!

I remember this one too well because EM and I got lost  and had a mild “accident” while finding this (above photo). After traveling a few kilometers, we didn’t find this and so we decided to go back. While trying to reverse the car’s direction, the tires at the back fell on a slightly deep ledge/canal. To make things worse, we forgot to bring our cell phones. EM had to walk kilometers up to the nearest police station while I stayed with the car in the freaking cold looking at  rows and rows of  hibernating grape branches. It’s winter, all of the grapes have been harvested and so what you’ll get to see are brown twigs.The wait lasted for more than 2 hrs. before 2 policemen finally hauled the car back to the main road. Now that’s what I call a true adventure.

This last one was in the town of Eguilaz. A cousin of EM was married on this place. That must have been so memorable. All dolmens in Spain are historical monuments and there a lot of them scattered around. The only thing is, you have to find them with a map.Teeheee!

Now leaving you with a super pose with the mountain of Gorbeia as the background.

This photo was taken on my first winter here.

Ciao for now, uncomplicated things to talk about on my next post.

♥ Che ♥

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