Albarracin

Albarracin sits inside a loop of the Guadalaviar on a rock spur, walls climbing the ridge above it, and its houses are rendered in a plaster coloured with local gypsum and red earth, which gives the whole town a pink-brown tone that changes through the day. It was the capital of an independent Muslim taifa under the Berber Banu Razin in the eleventh century, from whom the name comes, and it kept an unusual degree of separateness afterward, remaining a distinct lordship for centuries. The streets are narrow, stepped and irregular, with overhanging upper floors and carved doorways. Around the town, the Pinares de Rodeno holds rock shelters with prehistoric paintings in a landscape of red sandstone and pine.

What you actually see

• The pink plaster - houses rendered in local red-earth gypsum.
• The ridge walls - fortifications climbing the rock above the town.
• The overhanging lanes - stepped streets with projecting upper floors.
• The Rodeno shelters - prehistoric rock paintings in the pine woods nearby.

When to go

April to June and September to November; Albarracin sits at over a thousand metres and winters are cold with snow. Summer weekends bring heavy day-trip traffic and the town is small.

Honest expectations

Cars cannot enter most of the town and parking is outside and limited. Streets are steep and stepped throughout. Several buildings are visited only on guided tours booked at the tourist office.

Nearby

The Pinares de Rodeno lie south; Teruel and its Mudejar towers are east.