Calanda is a modest town in the Bajo Aragón, and it has produced one of the most original film directors of the twentieth century. Luis Buñuel was born there in 1900, and the town's famous Easter drumming, when thousands of people beat their drums through the night, shaped his imagery. He later said that the sound stayed in his head for life. The hills around Alacón, some distance away, are in the same dry, strange country, a landscape of red rock, olive terraces and open sky that feels like a film set.
Otros Restos Levantinos, Other Levantine Remains, is the label here, and it is honest: the shelter lies about three and a half kilometres from Alacón, and is one of a group of painted sites in the Río Martín cultural park, in the Levantine tradition protected by UNESCO as part of the rock art of the Mediterranean basin in Spain. The ride links it with the Coveta de la Cornisa.
It is a land of space and silence. Alacón has just over four hundred people, and Oliete not many more, and between them, the hills are crossed by dry gullies and a few dirt tracks. In spring the cereal fields are green, in summer they turn gold, and in autumn the ploughed earth is a deep red. The cold north-westerly wind, the Cierzo, blows often and can be fierce.
The roads are quiet and wide, with long views and easy bends, and a good surface on the main links. Lanes between the villages are narrower, patched and sometimes gravelly. A headwind on a straight can make progress slow, and a tailwind is a gift.
Fuel needs planning. Andorra, a town of nearly eight thousand people about twenty-one kilometres away, is the best bet, and Albalate del Arzobispo is also a good one. Carry water, sun protection and a snack.