Muruzabal

Muruzabal is a municipality in Navarra, situated on the Navarrese plain near Obanos on the Camino Frances. The village itself is a modest farming community, but it is the nearby hermitage that defines the area: Santa María de Eunate, a twelfth-century Romanesque chapel of octagonal plan, stands isolated in the wheat fields a short distance from the village.

Eunate is one of the most architecturally exceptional buildings on the entire Camino Frances. Its octagonal central plan, unusual for Iberian Romanesque, has fuelled scholarly debate about its origins. The chapel is surrounded by a porticoed ambulatory arcade that runs around its full perimeter.

For pilgrims, a short detour from the standard route to Eunate is almost universally rewarded, the isolated chapel in its field setting being one of the most evocative architectural encounters on any Camino.