10/03/2010
Vitoria-Gasteiz, 10th March 2010.- The Santa Maria Cathedral Foundation has been the setting this morning for the presentation of the book " The Walk of the Stone" , the author is Mr. Luis Miguel Martínez Torres who describes the medieval way from the quarry of Ajarte until the Santa Maria Cathedral. The publication, edited by the UPV ( University of the Basque Country), is a guide for doing the itinerary by walking, with 36 stops detailling it´s history, nature and it´s churches.
In the presentation we have seen Mrs. Lorena López de Lacalle, the president of the patronate of the Santa Maria Catedral Foundation Lorena López de Lacalle, ,the author Mr. Luis Miguel Martínez Torres, Mr. Juan Ignacio Lasagabaster, director of the Santa Maria Cathedral Foundation and Mr. Eugenio Ruiz Urrestarazu, codirector of the campus of Alava of the UPV.They are about 15 kilometers the distance that separates the Santa Maria Cathedral from Ajarte ( in Treviño), a town located in the other side of the " Mountains of Vitoria".
These 15 kilometers link the gothic temple that extended it´s construction during the next 200 years . The geologist Mr. Luis Miguel Martínez Torres, who has studied during several years the cathedral, has presented this book as a handbook for those persons who want to do this itinerary by walking. He suggests 36 stops during the 5 hours that are estimated for doing the itinerary. In each stop he describes some concepts related with the stones, or the transport, the way e.t.c and adds some comments. As explains Mr. Martínez Torres, 'The Walk of Stone´ also demands the importance of the rock as monumental support. "Behind the stones, more or less put in order and scrubed, there is a previous searching process , extraction, scrub and transport, that finishes in a building. " Without stone the Cathedral couldn´t be possible" . The guide tries to near the Cathedral from the beginning of the constructive process. "The visión of the monument changes after visiting the old quarries and walking around the medieval walks " declares the author. "It will be posible to appreciate the work of the stonemasons, the carriers... "The book explains that the ´lumaquela´ , the limestone used in the cathedral, it is a sedimentary rock, origined by sea- fossils of not very deep seas that covered the terrototy 60 millions years ago. Mr.Torres calculates that around 5.000 tons of stone were taken from Ajarte in about 10.700 carts in direction to the Santa Maria Cathedral. "Only one carrier could have needed 41 years and 2 months" The Santa Maria Cathedral Foundation, in collaboration with Mr. Luis Miguel Martínez Torres, has organised during the last two years some excursions to do this particular itinerary. The book is available in the Cathedral´s Shop, Las Escuelas street 11, with a price of 5 euros.