We have had a great couple of days travelling over the Pyrenees into Spain and at our first stop in Jaca on the Spanish side…
We had a terrific thunderstorm during the night of our stay near Laruns, France – forked lightning which lit up the mountains – it was amazing but obviously continued to chuck it down all night too as, when we started our ascent up the Pyrenees, the water was pouring out of the limestone cliff faces onto the road – it was brilliant!
We hadn’t really thought about doing much along the way to Spain other than stopping at any nice viewing spots to take a few pics, but as it turned out, there was a cable-car at the Lac du Fabreges which, for a few Euros took us to the top of Col de la Sagette which stands at 1.978m (that’s about 6500 feet!) – bonus! The view from up there is spectacular – you can actually get a tourist train (think Snowdon!) that runs around (and through) the mountains to Lac D’Artouste and takes about 2 hours for a round trip… Apparently it’s the highest railway in Europe… but we didn’t have time to do that so literally went to the top, had a stroll round and then headed back down again, love a cable-car me!
Next stop was at the Spanish border:
And then down the big hill into Jaca!
We found our accommodation in Jaca no problem and got the keys from “Nicolas” before having a little walk around town. It’s a lovely place – never been before but am glad we chose to stay…
According to the internet, in 1035, Ramiro I (the first king of Aragon – the name Aragon coming from the river that flows down the Canfranc valley north of Jaca, past the town) made Jaca his capital. However, Jaca’s time as the capital of Aragon ended in 1096 with the re-conquest of Huesca from the Moors – the capital was moved to this larger city and in the following century moved south again to Zaragoza. Jaca has an 11th century Romanesque cathedral and the fabulous 16th century pentagonal fortress, both of which we visited yesterday (08 September):
Top Middle: The entrance to Ciudadela de Jaca (Citadel Jaca) which is a pentagonal fortress originally dating back to the 16th century… it has a “dry” moat in which live deer (bottom right);
Bottom Left: St Peter above the church entrance (the fort was known as San Pedro Castle too…);
Bottom middle, an Eurasian Griffon Vulture – we spotted 8 of these circling above us today!
Today was our last day in Jaca and we spent it visiting Monasterio San Juan de La Peña. Apparently, the old monastery, which is partially carved into the stone of the great cliff that overhangs it (see photos below) was one of the most important monasteries in Aragon in the Middle Ages and “Juan de la Peña” means “Saint John of the Cliff”.
We thought we would only be there a few hours at most but there were a number of small walks to various view points where you could see the Pyrenees mountains (bit distant but looked better than on camera! Honest! 🤣) and the road took us past the Iglesias de Santa Maria in Santa Cruz de la Seros, which was all included in the price, so we bobbed in there for a look too!
Bottom Left – Iglesias de Santa Maria in Santa Cruz de la Seros;
The pics of Pete & me show the distant high Pyrenees from the viewpoint at San Voto -Jaca and where we were today are considered to be in the Pyrenees too!
Both the old monastery and St Mary’s Church are both said to date back to the 11th century and founded by Ramiro I so pretty amazing places and definitely well worth the €19.50 ticket price (for both of us!) as we were there for at least 5 hours…
We are now about to have dinner and have our bags packed ready for moving on in the morning… just a 500km hop down to Valencia where we will stay for a couple of nights before going to see our friends in Seron, Almeria… we have packed a lot into the last 6 days and are ready for more! Night night everyone xx
All the gubbins… 
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