In this travel letter you can join the abandoned villages high in the mountains in the strikingly beautiful Huseca province. There is a very special atmosphere because nature has taken back the villages after people have left.
Strikingly beautiful Huesca
If you like dramatic high mountains and deep valleys, the northern part of the Pyrenees is the right place. Here there is also more precipitation and partly dense forests. If you want to take a walk in a little more open landscape, you should stay further south. We found the ideal area in Huesca, north of the Sierra y los Canones nature park, along the A-1604 road that goes up from Boltaña.
Here the landscape is hilly and quite dry, but with small streams in between. The vegetation is small-grown pine, heather and shrubbery. And it is strikingly beautiful. Last but not least, the whole area is packed with small abandoned villages. Many of these can be driven to, and they are ideal for wild camping. Some can be reached by paved roads, for others you need 4×4. Others can only be reached on foot.
Abandoned villages
As in other countries, Spain has experienced emigration from the countryside. In the Pyrenees, and especially in the province of Huesca, there are hundreds of abandoned villages. Most of these are from the late 1600’s, they are located high in the mountains, and a majority are without a road connection. They can consist of a few houses, up to maybe 20 for the largest.
The houses are built in natural stone with soil and clay as a binder. Cement was expensive and far too heavy to carry into the mountains. This causes the walls to quickly collapse when the roof disappears because the binder is washed out in the rain. So it varies how many houses are left. The relocation started in the first part of the 20th century, and around 1960 there were not many permanent residents left.
Great places to wild camp
Now these villages are an exotic destination. We drove into some, partly on very bumpy roads. There were very few tourists to see in the villages despite the fact that there were lots of Spanish tourists in the area and quite full on the campsites, so it was ideal for camping alone. In addition to being a picturesque place to camp, on open meadows between the houses, the villages are the perfect starting point for hiking. Between them was a network of paths / roads, and these have now been made part of the national tourist trails and are well marked.
If you want to visit these villages, you will find many on Google maps. Here is a Spanish site with a lot of information: http://www.despobladosenhuesca.com/
Escartin
Escartin is one of the most spectacular villages. It is located high in the mountains without a road connection, it is quite large, and has many intact houses. To get there we drove up to the village of Bergua. We had hoped to camp there, but the village was now used as a holiday resort, so it was not relevant.
From Bergua it is 1.5 hours walk and 400 height meters up to Escartin at 1350 meters. When the village was built, there was hardly a road to Bergua, so everything had to be carried on the steep paths all the way down from the valley. It must have been a fantastic struggle.
Notice that the church bell still hangs in the astonishingly intact church. It is quite large and must weigh many hundreds of kilos. One can wonder how they got it up. I6t was probably pulled up on a sleigh. In the other villages with road connection that we visited, the bells were gone. Bronze has a high metal value. But here it still hung, since no one had bothered to get it down again.
The village is spectacularly situated on a cliff overlooking the valley and the mountains further inland. In the steep mountain sides above and below, terraces have been built for growing, who knows what?
Matidero
The village consists of 5-6 houses, some quite intact. Like all these villages, it has a small church with a tower. And as most of them, it has a water post where you can fill your drinking bottle. Even in the middle of a Spanish holiday we met no people here, and had the whole village to ourselves.
Up here at an altitude of 1200 meters we had some quiet days to ourselves. We went for walks during the day, read a book and drank some wine in the evening. Around 30 degrees, but with a cooling breeze from the west. The sunset behind the old church tower was magical. Cows grazed calmly around the car and left maneur we luckily avoided stepping into. The sound of the cow-bells put us to sleep and woke us up, and got us back to another time. This is really the feeling of being on tour.
Finestra
This is a village located by Aragon’s answer to the Great Wall of China, Muralla de Finestras, a very unique geological formation that will be presented in the next travel letter. The village consists of just under 20 houses, some in fairly good condition. It is spectacularly located by the large water reservoir and the Great Wall of China. Many hiking opportunities in the area.
This is the fourth travel letter from our road trip to the Pyrenees 2021. The others are here: category/spain
