Albalate del Arzobispo takes its name from its former masters, the archbishops of Zaragoza, and from an Arabic word for a paved road, which suggests the place has been a crossing point for a very long time. It sits in the Bajo Aragón on the Río Martín, a river that has cut a deep, dry gorge through the limestone on its way to the Ebro, and the Los Chaparros shelter, the Holm-Oak Shelter, lies about five and a half kilometres from the town. It belongs to a group of painted shelters, in the Levantine style, protected by UNESCO as part of the rock art of the Mediterranean basin in Spain and managed locally as a cultural park along the river.
For many riders, the draw of the Bajo Aragón is its character: poor, dry, honest and strikingly open. The land is a patchwork of olive, almond and cereal fields, with low hills of red and ochre rock, and small towns whose churches are built of brick in the Mudéjar tradition. It is also drum country. At Easter, towns such as Albalate, Híjar and Alcañiz fill their streets with thousands of drummers in an extraordinary, thundering procession that goes on through the night.
The roads suit a relaxed ride. They are generally good, with long straights and occasional bends where they climb out of the river valley, with views over the cultivated plain. Traffic is light, apart from agricultural vehicles during harvest. In summer the heat is fierce, and winter nights can be bitter, so spring and autumn are best. Fans of motor racing will know that MotorLand Aragón, the circuit at Alcañiz, hosts a Grand Prix, and the area fills with bikes in the right weekend.
Albalate has about two thousand people and a couple of petrol stations, and is the place for petrol. Ariño, a mining town of about nine hundred, lies a few kilometres off with huge open-cast coal pits that make a strange contrast to the old villages. Alloza is smaller still. Take water and food with you, since the countryside is empty.