Just north of Huesca, where the flat cereal land of the Hoya suddenly rears up into the first limestone walls of the Pre-Pyrenees, lies the little village of Nueno and, above it, the rock shelter named after Santa Eulalia de la Peña. This is the southern edge of the Sierra de Guara country, a landscape of gorges, conglomerate cliffs and scrub where griffon vultures ride the thermals and the light comes hard off pale stone.
The shelter takes its name from the hermitage and the old hamlet of Santa Eulalia de la Peña, nearly abandoned now, which perches on the slopes above Nueno. Rock paintings in this part of Aragón are mostly of the schematic kind, simplified human and animal figures and abstract marks in red, different in feel from the lively Levantine hunting scenes further south and east. They are part of the same broad Mediterranean rock art inscription, and like most such sites they are small and fragile. Do not expect a gallery; expect a ledge, some faint red marks, and a sense of how long people have looked out over this plain.
The riding around here is better than many people realise. Nueno sits right by the A-23 motorway and the old N-330 that climbs toward the Monrepós pass and on to Sabiñánigo and Jaca, but the interesting stuff is on the small roads. Head east along the foot of the sierra toward Arguis, Bentué de Rasal or round to Loporzano and you get narrow tarmac, tight bends and lovely views back over the plain, with very little traffic. The surface is often coarse and occasionally broken, and in winter the north wind can be bitterly cold coming off the mountains.
Huesca, around fifteen kilometres to the south, is the place for fuel, a proper meal and anything mechanical. It is a pleasant old city with a Romanesque cloister at San Pedro el Viejo and a fine cathedral, and its pastry shops are known for a local almond cake called the trenza. Nueno and the nearby villages are tiny, so take what you need before heading up. Spring and autumn are the sweet spots: green hills, clear air, and none of the furnace heat that summer brings to the plain below.