Loop from Huesca

01 Castle

Castle of Loarre

Castillo de Loarre

Built between 1033 and 1035 for Sancho Garcés III of Pamplona, Loarre overlooks the whole plain of the Hoya de Huesca, at the foot of the Pyrenees. Look at how the limestone rock serves as the walls' foundation: no besieger could undermine them. Considered the best-preserved Romanesque fortress in Europe, it shelters a domed church, a rarity in Romanesque art.

02 Mountain

Mallos de Riglos

First you'll notice the houses of Riglos, huddled at the foot of these conglomerate towers up to 275 metres high. The cemented Miocene pebbles, lifted with the Pyrenees and then eroded by water, form vertical walls, sometimes overhanging. Climbers take on the Visera here, reputed to be the largest overhang in Spain.

03 Abbey

Royal Monastery of San Juan de la Peña

Real Monasterio de San Juan de la Peña

The old monastery lies tucked beneath an enormous rocky overhang, where the kings of Aragon chose to be buried. In the cloister, the capitals by a sculptor named after the monastery tell the Bible through almost theatrical gestures. After the fire of 1675, the monks moved higher up, onto a plateau, into the new monastery of 1705.

04 Castle

Ciudadela de Jaca

Philip II had this five-pointed star citadel built in 1592 facing France, and it remains almost intact. Look for deer grazing at the bottom of the wide moat, which was never filled with water. Past the drawbridge and the Baroque gate, more than 35,000 lead figures re-enact battles in the museum rooms.

05 Heritage

Canfranc International railway station

Estación Internacional de Canfranc

Opened on 18 July 1928 in the presence of Alfonso XIII and Gaston Doumergue, this mountain station housed two customs services, two police forces and bilingual signs, one half French, the other Spanish. During the Second World War, wolfram bound for Germany crossed paths here with gold coming from Switzerland. Walk the length of its long symmetrical façade, designed to house two countries.

06 Abbey

Abbey of San Pedro de Siresa

Monasterio de San Pedro de Siresa

In the Hecho valley, at 822 metres, stands the northernmost monastery in Aragon, mentioned as early as 833. In 852, Eulogius of Córdoba admired a library here where the Aeneid, Horace and Juvenal could be read. The future Alfonso I the Battler was educated here, and the Romanesque church, begun in 1082, still serves as a parish church.

07 Village

Ansó

Head up the Veral valley to this village in the Aragonese Pyrenees, at 860 metres, whose land borders France. In 1375, its inhabitants arbitrated a grazing dispute between Barétous and Roncal, the origin of the Tribute of the Three Cows that Béarn herders still pay. The oldest residents still speak Ansotano, a variety of Aragonese.

08 Village

Torla-Ordesa

Torla-Ordesa opens onto the Ordesa valley, in the glacial valley of the Ara, a river that no dam holds back until Aínsa. Look at the church perched on a rocky spur that the road passes through in a tunnel, just below. All around, the town's large houses recall a 17th century enriched by trade and smuggling.

09 Mountain

Ordesa Valley

Valle de Ordesa

A U-shaped glacial valley opening at the foot of Monte Perdido, Ordesa prompted the creation of a national park as early as 1918. The Río Arazas tumbles down it in waterfalls, from the Gradas de Soaso to the fan-shaped Cola de Caballo. Scan the fajas, the ledges that run along the canyon walls.

10 Mountain

Cañón de Añisclo

Carved by the Bellós in the heart of Ordesa National Park, Añisclo hems in beech and fir between walls the sun barely touches. Notice a curiosity of its slopes: holm oaks grow at the top and beech woods at the bottom, through temperature inversion. Endemic plants cling to the overhangs, including a tiny carnivorous butterwort.

11 Village

Aínsa

On a promontory overlooking the confluence of the Cinca and the Ara, old Aínsa consists of two almost parallel streets leading to its Plaza Mayor. To the west stands the castle founded in the 11th century, and the tower of the church of Santa María, consecrated in 1181, still shows its arrow slits. It soon becomes clear that this town was first and foremost a stronghold.

12 Village

Alquézar

Backed against the Balcez and Olsón ranges, Alquézar overlooks the last canyon of the Vero. In the 9th century, Jalaf ibn Rashid had a castle built here to guard the approach to Barbastro, and the collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor was consecrated in 1099. Keep watch for the vultures that live in the neighbouring Sierra de Guara.