The village of Santa Cruz de la Serós is famous for its traditional architecture, with its houses made of stone and finished with the typical roof of slabs and the spectacular trunkconic chimneys. We are talking of one of the villages with bigger architectonic value of the county.
Its surname, "de la Serós", comes from its secular connexion with the noons (sorores or serores, in Aragonese) who, until the end of the XVI Century, lived in the Monastery of Santa María. The Monastery was founded by Ramiro I of Aragón around 1060. At the beginning it was used as feminine Monastery reserved only to the kings and the principal Aragonese nobles' daughters. The monumental Church of Santa María, jewel of the Aragonese Romanesque of the XII Century, has remained practically intact, whereas the different rooms of the monastery were disappearing with the passage of time.
The Parochial Church, dedicated to San Caprasio, is at the exit of the village. This is a typical Lombard construction, that probably dates back to the X-XI Centuries. At its head, a tough tower, built at the end of the XIIth Century, stands up.

Santa Cruz de la Serós has surgery, mail service, sportive installations and the possibility of taking, nearby, adventure sports activities.

The Cultural Park of San Juan de la Peña combines the patrimony - Old Monastery of San Juan de la Peña, New Monastery of San Juan de la Peña, Church of the Santa María Monastery (Santa Cruz, XIIth Century), Church of San Caprasio (Santa Cruz, Xth Century), all of them declared Goods of Cultural Interest,- with the natural environment. This area is considered Place of Communitarian Interest and has been declared zona ZEPA (Area of Birds Special Protection). Not in vain, San Juan de la Peña Sierra houses one of the most numerous populations of Lammergeiers ("Gypaetus barbatus"), Griffon Vultures ("Gyps fulvus"), and Egyptian Vulture ("Neophron percnopterus") in the whole Iberian Peninsula.

- Monastery of San Juan de la Peña
From the village sets out the road -and the bus service - that joins Santa Cruz de la Serós to the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña.

National Site since 1920, in this place come together exceptionally outstanding natural, historic and cultural values. Here we find the most important Monastery in Aragon during the High Middle Ages. Moreover, the National Site of San Juan de la Peña is a confined but valuable natural space whose limits are those of the Mountain Pano. Inside the scarps, under a big rocky roof, the old Monastery, emblematic Monastic centre of Aragon which was declared National Monument in 1889, is to be found.

Visit the official site of the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña

San Juan de la Peña Mountain is one of the most outstanding Aragonese ecosystems of Middle Mountain. In spite of the important modifications that took place in the forest mass due to the "Desamortización", the mountain of San Juan de la Peña conserves a great vegetal and animal wealth. In 1920 San Juan de la Peña was declared National Site, becoming the third Protected National Space of all the State. Nowadays it's been reclassified as Natural Monument. As well as Oroel, it is an enormous syncline of hanging conglomerates with summits on Mount Cuculo and Mount San Salvador.

In the most heavily protected areas we'll find plants requiring greater atmospheric humidity. We may even find some plant and animal species characteristics of high mountains in the higher areas with oceanic influences. Rupicolous species of great botanical interest such as bear's ear, valeriana longifolia and others grow on the scarps. Wild mushrooms and birds round out an ecosystem full of live.