Entrance Arches

At the exit of the El Olmo neighborhood, one of the highest and oldest, along with La Mota, towards the mountains and next to the Temple of Christ, you can see a splendid semicircular arch in masonry stone known as the "Arco of Toloño”.

Arco de Toloño, the oldest of them, was the access door to the Villa through the wall that evidently existed in that northern part of the town and that linked with the immense wall at the rear of the Christ.

The Toloño Arch is located at the exit from the El Olmo neighborhood towards the Sierra del Toloño. It is a masonry construction that consists of two bodies with a similar structure and decoration but of different dimensions. The lower body is of larger proportions. Its large semicircular arch is flanked by Tuscan pilasters decorated with cut-out plate capitals. An enormous corbel located on the keystone of the arch serves as a shelf for an image of the Virgen del Toloño that was placed in the niche. The upper floor, supported by the large entablature of the lower one, opens through another semicircular arch -today blinded-.

It features Tuscan pilasters and is topped with a curved pediment that supports three vases. Two other vases appeared flanking the lower body, but one of them has disappeared. It is the last vestige of what was once the wall that, next to the Romanesque temple of Santo Cristo, defended the entrance to the town. Currently, its function is purely ornamental.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, a new expansion took place that lengthened the town in the direction of the old road marked by the Larrazuría, Mayor and Frontín streets. This third extension has a markedly baroque character and is what will put the stamp of identity on the current Labastida. You enter the baroque urban nucleus of the population through the so-called Arco de Larrazuría.

More bombastic and more portentous than Toloño. On two thick low walls that enclose this wide semicircular arch and that, at the same time, support a wide stone band, stands a Renaissance-style temple that ends in a triangular pediment with obelisks with spherical characters. The two faces of this small temple have decorative motifs.

This semicircular arch, also made of ashlar masonry, is purely ornamental and much more spectacular, luxurious and recent than the one in Toloño: it connects Calle Larrazuría with Calle Mayor and serves as the entrance to the historic center of Labastida.

In front of the arch that overlooks Larrazuría street, the Labastida coat of arms is engraved and in the part that overlooks Calle Mayor, there is a seated image of the Virgin with the Child in a niche.