> Virtual visits of the Private park: VR1 y VR2

This park is reserved for use by the Jesuit community and those who lodge in the Spirituality and Arrupe Center and the Youth Hostel.

Right from the start the Jesuits tried to obtain the grounds adjoining the Holy House and the College. In 1948, these grounds increased substantially, from 5 to 25 hectares, with the purchase of two neighboring farms.

It now consists, first of all, of a vast plain ground, a large triangle having the College as its base, the path by the Urola River and the Erlepater mountain as its sides, and the Youth Hostel as its apex. VR2

On 6 November 1982, on a visit to Loyola, John Paul II celebrated Mass for a huge crowd at an altar built on the central staircase of the back of the building. The wall that limited the old garden was knocked down, the side of the Erlepater mountain was leveled further, and many fruit-trees were felled. That was one more step toward the loss of its former agricultural character to eventually becomes a purely green expanse. Presently it is becoming a garden.

On the very edge of the mountain side there is a statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, made of wrought iron, that was brought from Paris in 1895. Its pedestal is like the one of the statue of St Ignatius in the center of the avenue that joins Loyola with Azpeitia.