The Cathedral of San Pedro in Jaca is one of the oldest Romanesque cathedrals in Spain, built in the second half of the 11th century under King Sancho Ramírez of Aragon. Its construction marked a key moment in the Romanesque pilgrimage route — Jaca was the first major stop on the Camino Aragonés, the branch of the Camino de Santiago that crossed the Pyrenees at the Somport Pass — and the cathedral's design was influential enough to be copied at churches along the entire route.
The exterior is restrained in the Romanesque manner, but the carved capitals and tympanum at the south portal are exceptional: the figures are among the finest early Romanesque sculpture in Spain, with a confident complexity that still stops people in their tracks. The interior is cool and appropriately austere, with a nave lit through alabaster windows that give the space a pale, amber glow. The attached Diocesan Museum holds rescued Romanesque frescoes and sculpture from churches throughout the Aragonese Pyrenees — some of the best medieval art in the region, well worth the admission.