Home » Spain » Southern Aragon

August 2003

Southern Aragon

David Aaronson
2005-09-28 18:29:36

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public although we did not make the long climb up (3). There is a separate castle and set of walls on the other side of town as well (visible in the first Albarracin picture).

We think Albarracin is best seen by wandering aimlessly. The buildings generally lack any semblence of a straight line or a right angle as you can see here. There is only one real public square inside Albarracin, it is near the city hall and we sat at one of the two cafes there and had a platter of local ham and a couple of beers. Honestly, Albarracin didn't offer very good people-watching opportunities because it was mostly deserted, but the atmosphere is fantastic and it was much cooler at the relatively high altitude Albarracin sits at than it was down on the plains.

Teruel is the capital of Aragon's southernmost region and it is best known for the four Mudejar towers located in the city. Mudejar refers to Muslim people who stayed behind when the Christians recaptured portions of Spain. It also refers to the art and the architecture they influenced. This is perhaps the best restored of the four towers, the Torre de El Salvador (4).

Originally this was a minaret, which is still apparent if you go up inside the tower which is definately worth the small fee (5). The stairs to the top spiral between the original minaret and the newer (as in 14th century new) square tower built around it. The center of Teruel is a crowded confusing place and sometimes the towers are obviously visible (like here) but difficult to actually reach.

This is the Torre de San Pedro, or at least we think it is (6). To be fair, the towers are not easily distinguishable from photographs several weeks after you get back. Attached to this tower is the tomb of Diego and Isabel, Aragon's homegrown version of Romeo and Juliet with less obvious causes of death (grief, for instance). From Teruel it isn't too far back to Valencia, and from Valencia it's about three hours back to Barcelona. Since we already covered that terrain at the beginning of the trip, we can skip right to Barcelona now.

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Did you ever find out what the weird statues by the side of the Rio Tajo are?
A friend and I drove along that road last summer, we were lucky there were no cars in front nor behind us, and we were even luckier in that we never met up with an approaching car.
We were also fascinated with the statues but so far haven't managed to find out any details or facts.
Do let me know if you know anything more.

Noreen Wilson, 2007-01-11 16:57:44