In the footsteps of the Camino de Santiago pilgrims, merchants and travellers, you cross the Col du Pourtalet mountain pass. Heading south. At 1794m in altitude, the mountain pass opens up between the Pourtalet summit and the sharp Anéou summit which goes away to the west. Here the horizon is vast, the smooth curves and tawny ochre colours giving a foretaste of Africa, according to Henry Russell. You follow the route, over the banks of the Gállego River which travels north to south through this singularly beautiful valley. The scenery is superb.
A mix of steep landscapes, jagged summits, rocks, lakes and forests. Here and there, villages with typical architecture. A group of large buildings with broad stone walls and dizzyingly-high slate roofs. And all this against the exotic mountainous backdrop of the Pyrenees, and its series of peaks flirting with the 3000m mark.
In the course of a small journey, you’ll fall under the spell of the curious architecture: the Mozarab churches, witnesses of a turbulent past between Christians and Muslims. They were built between the 10th and 11th centuries, at the time when Islam was flourishing in Spain, by Christian communities determined to resist them. But their bell towers, in the form of minarets, are evidence of a Moorish influence.
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