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Las Cumbres: discovering the School of Mysteries

In the footsteps of the protagonists of the Spanish series, among ancient convents and dark cells

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Passionate Prime Video viewers will surely have noticed the arrival of the third season of “El internado: Las Cumbres”, a Spanish series that has now become “lSchool of Mysteries” and is set in an ancient monastery, full of secret passages and bloody legends, located on a mountaintop, surrounded by unfriendly forests and inhabited by unknown creatures.

Such a place, I am sorry to point out, does not exist. But if you settle for something less haunted and mysterious but more real, here are a few pointers on how to get to the School of Mysteries and how to organise a nice trip to Spain in the footsteps of the protagonists of the series.

 
 
 
 
 
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Un post condiviso da El Internado (@elinternado_lascumbres)

Meanwhile, some geographical coordinates. Las Cumbres is a town in the Republic of Panama, Central America, and has nothing to do with the setting of the TV series. Instead, it brings together crows, murderers, psychopathic professors and troubled kids in the monastery of Iratxe (Santa María Real de Irache), a Spanish town in the region of Navarre, halfway between Pamplona and Logroño.

A structure of ancient origins dating back to the 8th century, the monastery has indeed been the scene of many unedifying events throughout history. But nothing to do with medieval lodges and bloodthirsty crows. Located along the Pilgrim's Way to Santiago, the sacred building has in reality a much less impressive location than the one shown on television. It is not in the mountains but basically on the plains, it is not surrounded by woods and a few metres from its entrance stands a modern wine cellar of considerable size. Which also houses a wine museum, but scenically has a less than positive impact. The scenes set in the cloisters and corridors were filmed here.

The area where the monks live, the main floor let us say, does not actually belong to the monastery. It is the interior of the austere Infantado Palace, built in 1600 in Lazkao, in the Basque Country.

 
 
 
 
 
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Un post condiviso da Cultura en Castilla-La Mancha (@culturaenclm)

Not even the church belongs to the monastery, because at the time of filming it was undergoing restoration. So the church of San Esteban de Lartaun in Oiartzun, not far from San Sebastian, was chosen. A rather sombre building, although grand and imposing, during the Middle Ages it would have been a Visigothic chapel, then an important Romanesque construction. Fires, wars and various vicissitudes turned it into an indecipherable structure in time and style.

We saw that the monastery does not have its own forest, so the scenes of terror and escape among the trees were filmed in a park known as the  Artikutza, a 3,700-hectare forest, gloomy and damp, full of animals and water springs.

The convent's big library... is not in the convent. But in the building that houses the Sociedad Bilbaína, in Bilbao. A 19th-century building that holds a series of architectural treasures.

 
 
 
 
 
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Un post condiviso da Sociedad Bilbaina (@sociedadbilbaina)

Finally, two recurring contexts in the numerous episodes of the TV series. The dungeons and cells of the Mystery School are actually located in Fort Guadalupe in Hondarribia, a military building on the border between the Spanish and French Basque Country. The turreted house where the mad professor who owns the boarding school lives is the Tower House in Usurbil. Dating back to the 15th century, it cannot be visited and is also not surrounded by a large park with ancient trees. Instead, it is located a few metres from the railway, in an area that is not overly attractive.

Image Thibault Penin on Unsplash