Today’s #LaVuelta20 stage started from Logroño, the capital of the La Rioja region, and a former commercial port of the Romans. The city is located some 30 kilometers from Aleson, a small town known for the epic battle that according to several legends, took place between

Roland, Charlemagne’s nephew, and Ferragut, a famous giant that at that time was lord of the castle of Najera. As the story goes, Roland was traveling together with his companions to Santiago de Compostela, when Ferragut challenged him in combat, a fight which stretched

over two arduous days and eventually saw Roland defeat his adversary after discovering his only weak point. Roland is the same knight that featured as main character in the oldest surviving work of French literature, “La Chanson de Roland”,

which is based on the emblematic Battle of the Roncevaux Pass (778), Charlemagne’s only major defeat and one that occurred after the King of Franks antagonised the Basque population of the region, destroying villages and the walls of Pamplona during his campaign of 777-778.

On that day, the Basques ambushed Charlemagne’s rear guard in the narrow Roncevaux Pass as they were crossing the Pyrenees back into France and inflicted a heavy defeat on the biggest army of that time, killing over 2000 soldiers and prominent military figures.

“La Chanson de Roland” masterfully romanticizes the events of that day, but in doing so, it actually depicts an inaccurate portrayal of that famous battle, to serve the Crusaders’ interests and fuel their goals and motivations.

Those troubled times (11th-12th century) were an important and fruitful period in the history of literature that saw a huge number of epic poems come to life, the heroic figures presented there serving as a model to all the knights in the Middle Ages.

While Chrétien de Troyes was roaming France and working on his charming Arthurian romances that were to influence generations of writers, painters, philosophers, military men and last but not least kings, some 4000 kilometers to the east,

Shota Rustaveli was producing what is widely regarded as the masterpiece of Georgian literature, “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin”, a sublime 6648-line poem taking place in the exotic and alluring lands of India and Arabia, which tells the captivating story of

general Avtandil and knight Tariel and their quest to find the ravishing Nestan-Darejan, the object of Tariel’s love, which sees them embark on a truly epic adventure, visit several faraway kingdoms and encounter a plethora of magical creatures and memorable characters.

Born around 1150 and a native of Rustavi, a small town in the Meshketi area, Rustaveli was part of Queen Tamar’s court, acting as a finance minister during the country’s “Golden Era”, when the kingdom grew in power and established itself as a Christian power in the region.

This military and political successes led to a cultural renaissance, which resulted in the appearance – near Kutaisi – of the Gelati Academy, a prominent center of education in philosophical and theological literature, whose scholars translated Plato, Aristotle and Neoplatonists.

The text – a Persian tale at origin – was written in quatrains and was largely preserved by oral tradition, the earliest surviving fragments of manuscripts dating from the 16th century. Rustaveli, who began working on this poem around 1180 and completed it some two decades later,