Roncesvalles Travel Guide

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This is the very good restaurant where you can get delicious food and beverages. To get the "Plato del peregrino" or “Pilgrim dinner” you should book before 18:00 in the bar. That pilgrims diner consists of soup, main course, bread, salad, coffee or tea and desert of yours choice. Mineral water and local Navarrese wine. The price was only eight euros. You can check current prices at their site. It is easy to find because Casa Sabina adjoin to medieval mill or “Molino antiguo” where the tourist office is situated.

Favorite Dish: Beefsteak and onion soup.

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From the early days of our childhood we know the Song of Roland. And from that song we know about the battle at the Roncesvalles Pass fought on August 15, 778. But the song of Roland where the author tells us a story of self-sacrifice and heroic death of Count Roland was written four or even five hundred years after the battle! I will no retell the story about the Roland, Charles the Great and defeat of his rearguard I would like to show you the place where the real events took place! The battle took place in the Roncesvalles Pass between the slope of the mountain and Ibaneta hill. At the center you can see the column where Roland allegedly tried to break his sword Durendal and where he has blown his horn Oliphant. You can reach the column monument walking through the tunnel. There is also modern Chapel which replaced old one.
What has happened in reality nobody knows definitely.
There exists only one historical mention of a Frankish Roland, found in the section of Vita Karoli Magni on the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, written probably by Charlemagne's courtier and biographer Einhard. The passage, which appears in Chapter 9, mentions that Hroudlandus (a Latinization of the Frankish Hruodland) was among those killed in the battle: He was returning [to France] with his army safe and intact, but high in the Pyrenees on that return trip he briefly experienced the Basques. That place is so thoroughly covered with thick forest that it is the perfect spot for an ambush. [Charles's] army was forced by the narrow terrain to proceed in a long line and [it was at that spot], high on the mountain, that the Basques set their ambush. [...]Eggihard, the overseer of the king's table, Anselm, the count of the palace, and Roland, the lord of the Breton March, along with many others died in that skirmish. But this deed could not be avenged at that time, because the enemy had so dispersed after the attack that there was no indication as to where they could be found. Alas! Roland died in ambush and probably he even had no any smallest chance to unsheathe his Durendal or blow his Oliphant.

Ibaneta Hill and Chapel are situated 1,5 kilometers on the highway toward Valcarlos and France. It will take approximately twenty minutes to get the place from Roncesvalles by walk.