Doña Aldonza Manrique de Lara, daughter of the Dukes of Nájera founded the monastery in the mid 16th c., outside the city. Nothing remains of this building and the current complex consists in church, cloister and other monastery buildings inside the cloister.

The monastery church is the only part open to visitors. It dates from the 17 th century and is the work of the stonemasons Pedro Ezquerra de Rozas and José de la Puente Liermo. Strung along the nave you can see various altarpieces of great beauty, two of them in Rococo style in the arms of the transept, one of them with the image of the Conception from the mid 17th c., and the other with that of Santa Clara. The main altarpiece in baroque style is made up of a base, a single block of three vertical series of panels and top piece, the work of Mateo Rubalcaba, in the centre of the body is a fine carving of Santa Elena.

Wrought iron railings at the foot of the church composed of two parts dating from 1660 separate the part open to the public from the closed order where nowadays the Franciscan Clarisa nuns live.

San Millán de la Cogolla is how this site made up of a village and the two monasteries is known, which has its roots in the community which grew up around the work of the hermit monk named Millán who lived 101 years (473-574) in caves in the sierra de la Demanda devoted to prayer. Suso from the Latin sursum means “at the top”, as the older of the monasteries is known, and Yuso, from the Latin deorsum, “at the bottom”. In 1997, they were both declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

Of the current Monastery of Suso, constructed between the 6th and 11th centuries, important vestiges remain of the different historic moments it has lived through. The rock caverns in which the hermits lived, the primitive Visigoth coenobium, the Mozarab enlargement and finally, the Romanesque.

Access to the monastery is through the portaello, where the tombs of the infantes de Lara and their tutor Nuño are located, accompanying the three Navarran queens.

Through the Mozarabic arch with alabaster capitals which recall the time of the caliph of Cordoba in the 10th c., decorated with designs depicting plant motifs and geometrical shapes, we enter inside the Mozarabic monastery with three large horseshoe arches. At the back we can see the remains of the primitive Visigoth construction.

The burial cave contains the tomb of the founder from the second half of the 12th c. built of black alabaster and decorated with a recumbent statue, wearing priest's robes, alb, chasuble and stole with a beautifully worked cross on his chest bearing the decoration of numbers and plants. Nowadays, the Pilgrims' Way as it passes through la Rioja makes a diversion to the monastery of Yuso where the saint's remains are kept.

The origin of the construction of this monastery is reflected in a legend which tells how king García of Nájera, ordered the transfer of the remains of San Millán which were then in Suso to the Monastery of Santa María La Real de Nájera. The oxen which were pulling the cart stopped in the valley as if the Saint's remains did not want to abandon it, so the current monastery of Yuso was constructed on the spot. A 10th-11th century Romanesque monastery of which today no trace remains, over which the current monastery of Yuso was constructed between the 16th and 18th centuries by the Benedictine abbots.

The Benedictine monks moved to the monastery in the 10th century. One of the most notable abbots was Domingo, born in the Riojan village of Cañas, better known as Santo Domingo de Silos.

The main door to the monastery was built in 1661 and depicts the relief of San Millán “Moorslayer” since, according to tradition, he fought against Islam together with Santiago (St James) in the battle of Simancas. The vestibule was made later, in 1689, and together these lead into the Kings' Chamber, called thus because of the four large canvases of kings who supported the monastery.

The low cloister was begun in 1549 and although its vaults are gothic in conception, it is Renaissance. Outside it is classicist in style and it houses twenty-four paintings by José Vexes, whose main theme is the life of San Millán, written by San Braulio, Archbishop of Zaragoza.

The vestry is one of the loveliest in Spain, the former chapter house started to be used as such around 1693. The 18th century frescos on the ceiling conserve all the rich original colour in spite of never having been restored. The walnut drawers and chests, over which hang twenty-four oils painted on copper in the Baroque style originating in Flanders, Madrid and Italy.

The monastery church was the first part of the whole to be completed, begun in 1504 and finished thirty-six years later. It is catalogued as being "decadent gothic". The grandiose altarpiece of the main altar has a canvas by Fray Juan Ricci, of the school of El Greco, depicting San Millán on horseback and the battle of Hacinas . The extraordinary wrought ironwork of Sebastián de Medina from 1676 complete the artistic whole of the main chapel.

The lower choirstalls were decorated by a Flemish sculptor around 1640, the retro choir in French Rococo style is decorated with busts depicting the disciples of San Millán, with the plateresque pulpit with reliefs of the writers of the gospels and symbols of the passion. The upper choir, somewhat later than the lower one, is supported on an arch with sixteen medallions, from the first half of the 17th c.

The shelves for the monastery songbooks hold twenty-five volumes copied between 1729 and 1731. The monastery archives and library are of great value to researchers and is considered to be among the best in Spain. Here the cartularies and three hundred original volumes are conserved.

In the exhibition room the replicas of the Romanesque ivories on the caskets are outstanding: reliquaries of San Millán from the 11th c. and of San Felices from the 12th c.

It was built by Benedictine monks, who stayed there until the disendowment and expulsion of the 19th c. Nowadays the Augustine friars are responsible for keeping alive the spirit of the monastery.

The archaeological ensemble consists of the shrine of Santa María de la Piscina, a Repoblación necropolis, a village of partial cave dwellings and remains of fortifications and watchtowers. After the restoration of the shrine (1976, 1977 and 1978) excavations were undertaken around it, revealing the existence of a medieval village from the 10th to the 14th centuries. Some tombs are from the second half of the 10th century, which suggests a population prior to the foundation by the Infante Don Ramiro Sánchez, perhaps dating to the Repoblación period. Towards the 14th century it was depopulated because of the Castilian civil war and its inhabitants would later create the nearby village of Peciña, whose name derives from Piscina.

The shrine of Santa María de la Piscina is the most complete and beautiful romanesque building preserved in La Rioja. It belongs to the full romanesque period, as the building work was started in the mid-12th century and there are no further additions (except for the coat of arms placed above the south portal around 1537). Its interest lies in that it is the only romanesque chapel in the region that remains in a fairly pure condition and in its early date, as almost all the romanesque in La Rioja is from a later period.

It is an ashlar construction consisting of a nave with four aisles with a barrel vault ceiling and three round transverse arches, a rectangular presbytery with a similar ceiling and a semicircular apse covered by a semi-dome. Attached to the north wall of the nave, there is a rectangular chamber covered with quarter vault (possibly a meeting room for landowners) and in the west gable end, there is a square bell tower.

The parish church of San Vicente de la Sonsierra was built at the beginning of the 16th century within the fortified enclosure of the castle. The architectural style — variously called Late Gothic, Flamboyant Gothic or Catholic Monarchs style— displaced the romanesque and full gothic styles.

It is listed as a national monument since 1933. It consists of a nave with four aisles with shallow chapels between the buttresses, and an octagonal or polygonal somewhat narrower east end with seven sides. To the north, the sacristy has a 16th century section and another section which is baroque from the early 18th century. The high choir is on top of vaults with stellar ribbing on vaults of star-shaped vaults. It is is located at the west end, together with as seven-sided Tower. The entrance, located in the second-last section to the south, is flamboyant gothic and it is protected by a baroque portico.

The cathedral is a stupendous model of proto-gothic architecture. Organised like a typical pilgrims' church, it has three naves, the central one of double width and higher, crossed by the transept and with a girola which originally would have had three apse chapels. In the early 12th century it was enlarged to convert the temple into a fortified church, the only example of this type we can see in La Rioja. The main altarpiece is a gem of Spanish Renaissance sculpture and a work by Damián Forment. The cathedral has a Romanesque end with 12th century reliefs and capitals, including a rigorous relief of David, as the psalmist king.

Inside, what most catches your attention is the hen house in which a rooster and a hen live as a reminder of the miracle of the hanged pilgrim.

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