Aínsa

It was such a beautiful day yesterday, (after the biggest snowfall of the season on Tuesday) that we decided to go on an outing to Aínsa in the Sobrarbe. It used to be a real trek to get there, but they opened a lovely new road from Sabiñánigo to Fiscal which takes you a good part of the way painlessly. From Fiscal onwards it's narrow and winding but the views are great. We stopped in Boltaña to have coffee in the big Hotel Barceló made out of a great big monastery; last week's two teas in the Parador in Alcañíz cost more than €7, whilst in Barceló we had two coffees and complimentary cakes for €3.90!

Then on to the beautiful, singular town of Aínsa. 

Here's an aerial photo which shows something of the form of this place, which has been a national monument since 1965. You drive up a bendy road and park in a car park which can take more than a thousand cars. Since it's March, low-season, it was free, but last time I was there in -August, with a group of tourists-we had to pay for parking. Only residents are allowed to bring their cars into Aínsa. Just as well-medieval towns weren't designed for cars!

The comarca of Sobrarbe is named after the legend of a battle in the eighth century against the Moors; it wasn't going too well until a cross appeared on top of a tree, and then the Christians won.....something like that.

A pleasant walk away from the town, past a farm takes us to the  covered cross. It's a 17th or 18th century monument; you can just see the thing in the middle is a stone "tree" with a metal cross on the top. Afterwards we walked back through the car park to the town.  Aínsa really is a very special place. Market square, stone arches, Romanesque church of St Mary with a gigantic bell tower and amazing views of the town and the convergence of the two rivers, Ara and Cinca.

Souvenir shops full of "witchy" sorts of gifts; lots of "alternative"-looking people. The restaurants in the market square either didn't show a "menu of the day" or what they showed was more than we wanted to pay. However, just out of the square we found a little place where the food wasn't so expensive. I really enjoyed my meal!

It was a lovely outing altogether.