Iter Facere

Monday July 9- Hecho Valley and Jaca

The road to Hecho from Anso starts out awful but rapidly becomes excellent, so this will be our preferred route out of the valley. Our plan is to visit the church in Siresa outside of Hecho and than drive into Jaca, but the view of the mountains is so compelling that we keep driving deeper into the valley. It is rather spectacular, with the sheer walls and the river cutting through the gorge. I think it must be some kind of soft rock, since it seems to erode easily. We’re a little gun shy about the roads after last night, but each time we stop we decide to go on a little further, and each time we’re happy we did. It is a beautiful valley. It would be nice to be able to hike up into the mountains. We eventually stop at an area called Selva de Oza, where the valley widens out and there is a camping area. We admire the view for awhile and head back to Siresa. The monastery there is small and charming, a little Romanesque building started in 895. Some of the art work was stolen by the art thief Erik ‘the Belgian’ in the 1970’s, but the English brochure doesn’t say whether it was returned or not! A Christ figure, still with it’s original paint, was just discovered under the alter in 1995. Stylistically it almost looks modern. Interesting.
Then to Jaca, which is quite an attractive city, although its was little spoiled for us by the fact that we can’t find the Turismo, and then when we do find it it is closing. Argh. Quickly to the hulking cathedral before it closes for siesta. Its dark and foreboding. The checkerboard decoration we’ve been seeing on many religious buildings originating here, so its called the Jaca chessboard. A struggle to find lunch, everything is a restaurant, one place we sit down won’t bring a menu so we leave, we forget a sweatshirt so we have to go back...anyway we eat and then drive out to the town of Aiso which has an alluring picture in the Turismo brochure. The road is another adventure, barely one car wide, clinging to the side of the mountain with blind curve following blind curve. I honk my way up and down the mountain hoping that anyone coming the other way will slow down. After all of that Aiso is a bit of a letdown. Kind of cute, but nothing that makes us want to stop. Oh well. Back to Jaca where we find an internet connection and try to connect with Jenny. Walking around Jaca makes us like it more and more. It has an interesting old section, the new parts are well integrated into the city, and the trees and flowers make it very pleasant. I’m struck by the flowers in the windows and entranceways in this area. Its more predominant than in Zaragoza.

After dinner we have the other ourujo - blanco. We decide we prefer hierbo.

posted by Jim @ 12:11 PM