Huesca Travel Guide
From Wikitravel
Huesca is in Aragon, Spain. The province of Huesca has some excellent scenery which is totally unspolit. Depopulation has meant that many stunning sights are absolutely abandoned.
Contents |
Get in
By bus
By car
By plane
Nearest airport is Zaragoza airport. Ryanair flies here.
By train
Trains run from Barcelona and Madrid, including the Ave high speed train. Trains in general are expensive and at inconvenient times.
Get around
There are many places which you can only reach by mountain bike or 4x4, but that's the beauty of them.
By train
The train from Huesca to Canfranc is worth catching just to see the scenery, and the surreal, semi-abandoned Louis XV style station at the end of the line.
See
- Most of old Huesca city is being knocked down.
- The little Romanesque church of SS Pedro y Pablo. The capitals in the cloisters are by the same master as those in the Cathedral of Jaca. This church used to be the Christian cathedral during the Muslim occupation.
- The former mosque is now the cathedral, an interesting mish-mash of styles with late Gothic doorways and a Renaissance carved alabaster altarpiece by Damian Forment.
- The Casino in the centre of town is Modernista (Art Nouveau) with interesting interiors which can be visited, and a bar.
Do
The best time to go is obviously in the summer, but January and February often have plenty of sun. August is fiesta season.
- Huesca city has its Fiesta Mayor from 9 to 15 August, with concerts and public drunkenness, and you may wish to avoid this, or indeed make a point of going there. There are various international music festivals in the province in July and August.
- Cañoning - the descent of mountain rivers through caves and canyons, in wetsuits. Dangerous in June due to flash floods.
- Mountaineering
Buy
Eat
Local specialities include Pollo al chilindrón (chicken with red peppers) and Ternasco (local lamb).
- The Hervi Restaurant - recommended for inexpensive home-style cooking. Only go if you're hungry (big servings) and understand spoken Spanish - the menu is not written down.
Drink
The Somontano wines are good, but not as good as they're priced.
Sleep
Get out
- Loarre One of the best Romanesque castles in Europe (recently the site for Ridley Scott's film, Kingdom of Heaven) just has a one-man bar hidden behind a few rocks, and a part-time guide. Close to Huesca city.
- Although you might be attracted to the high Pyrenees, you should definitely visit the pre-Pyrenees - a parallel range just to the North of Huesca city.
- The Sierra de Guara for mountaineering and birdwatching (vultures and birds of prey).
- Ordesa Mational Park is particularly spectacular in autumn. In summer some of the waterfalls dry up. No cars.
- Barbastro Small town with an interesting old part, centre of the Somontano wine district. You can visit vineyards from here.
- Ainsa, Ansó and Alquézar are beautiful, well preserved Romanesque villages in mountainous regions. There are other, less well-known places which are also charming.
- San Juan de la Peña has to be seen - part Romanesque, part Gothic shrine set into an enormous rock in lovely mountain scenery. Easily accessible from Huesca.
- Jaca has an important Romanesque cathedral and fortifications reputed to be designed by Leonardo de Vinci (they're not).
| This article is an outline and needs more content. It has a template, but there is not enough information present. Please plunge forward and help it grow! |
