Village
The municipality that is home to the Cistercian monastery of Rueda, a jewel of Cistercian art in Aragon.
Monument
The monastery of Nuestra Señora de Rueda, in the municipal territory of Sástago (Ribera Baja del Ebro, Zaragoza), is a Cistercian house declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), in the category of monument, since 1924. It stands on the banks of the Ebro, facing the town of Escatrón, on a navigable stretch of the river surrounded by fertile lowland and wooded islands. Its origin goes back to 1152, with the founding of the abbey of Nuestra Señora de Saltz by monks from Gimont, and to the later abbey of Juncería, founded in 1162; in 1182 King Alfonso II of Aragon granted these monks the castle and town of Escatrón, and by 1202 they had already settled at the definitive site of Rueda. The name Rueda comes from the Arabic rawḍa, 'mausoleum, ornate tomb'.
Monument
The former palace of the counts of Sástago, a family with extensive holdings in Aragon between the 13th and 17th centuries.
Monument
The parish church of Sástago (Ribera Baja del Ebro, Zaragoza), next to the Monastery of Rueda, was built in the 17th century on the site of an earlier church and is dedicated to Our Lady of the Pilar. It is Baroque in style, with a single rectangular-plan nave divided into three bays by transverse arches, built of rubble masonry and brick reinforced with ashlar, and a three-tier bell tower topped by an octagonal section.
Nature
The Meandros del Ebro (Ebro Meanders) are a protected area — a Special Area of Conservation and Site of Community Importance — covering 1106 hectares around the great meanders and riverside woodlands formed by the Ebro river between Sástago and Escatrón (Zaragoza), with abundant birdlife. It was declared a Site of Community Importance in July 2000 to protect two protected fish species, and became a Special Area of Conservation in February 2021. Within the Mediterranean ecoregion, the site brings together six natural habitats, including Mediterranean rivers with permanent and intermittent flow, tall-herb humid meadows, and riverside woods and scrub with willows and white poplars. Two plant species, twenty-three bird species, three amphibian species and two mammal species have also been identified there.
Activity
Main festivities of Sástago from 13 to 20 August, in honour of the Virgen de Montler and San Roque; on 25 April a pilgrimage is held to the hermitage of Montler.
Activity
Sástago celebrates the festival of San Antón from 16 to 18 January, with the monumental bonfire and the handing out of wine and roasted chorizo, as its winter festival; the main festival is in August, in honour of the Virgen de Montler and San Roque.
Monument
The main access to the Monasterio de Rueda is the Puerta Real, the most monumental entrance to the monastery since its construction in the early 17th century; Baroque in style, it incorporated in the 18th century a series of sculptures on Bernardine themes and leads into a spacious vestibule from which the plaza de San Pedro is reached.
Nature
The viewpoint is located next to the Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Rueda, a Cistercian monastery founded in 1182 by Alfonso II of Aragon and built between the 13th and 15th centuries in Mudéjar-Gothic style. It stands on the banks of the Ebro, opposite Escatrón, and from the Baroque upper section of its tower there is an unrivalled view of the whole complex and the river's meander.
Activity
Sástago's calendar of local festivals marks 16 January, the feast of San Antón, as the municipality's winter festival; no confirmation has been found of an actual festival of San Blas, so the sources disagree on the dedication.
Monument
Historic centre of Sástago, in the Ribera Baja del Ebro (Zaragoza), located next to the ducal palace and near the Monastery of Rueda. According to the description made of the town by Pascual Madoz in the mid-19th century, it had several fairly spacious and clean streets, and three squares.
Monument
The Monastery of Rueda preserves a Mudéjar tower topped with a Baroque upper section, accessible from the abbot's dormitory, from where there is a panoramic view of the whole monastic complex. The monastery, Cistercian and declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) since 1924, stands on the banks of the Ebro, opposite Escatrón but already within the municipal boundary of Sástago; its origins go back to the abbey of Nuestra Señora de Saltz, founded in 1152 by monks from Gimont, who in 1182 received the castle and town of Escatrón from Alfonso II of Aragon before settling definitively in 1202 at the current site. The church was consecrated in 1238, although work on the medieval complex was not considered finished until the second half of the 14th century or the early 15th.
Historical milestone
Alfonso I handed Sástago to Artal de Alagón in 1133 and the family dominated the territory from the twelfth century. In 1511 Fernando the Catholic granted the lord of Sástago the title of count, which placed the lineage among the first nobility of Aragon.
Monument
Raised on the summit of a hill in Sástago, in the Ribera Baja del Ebro, this castle of Muslim origin from the 10th century watched over the river's meander and the passage towards Bajo Aragón; after the Christian conquest it was absorbed into the lordship of the Alagón family and lost its military function. Rectangular in plan and oriented north to south, the medieval walled precinct was protected by towers and a keep, with the gate on the north side; a chapel and other Baroque buildings were later raised inside it. Today much of it lies in ruins and only the main tower, of irregular masonry, still stands. Included in the Lista Roja del Patrimonio en Peligro, it is among the castles declared Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) under the Law on Aragonese Cultural Heritage.
Historical milestone
Sástago developed two trades of its own: cutlery, with knives of characteristic crosspiece and mother-of-pearl handles, and hat making. Both activities sustained the villa until the beginning of the twentieth century, when hydroelectric generation arrived.