Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo and Cueva de moncín I

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo

   The leaning towers of Aragon are a familiar sight in Teruel, but in Zaragoza the Mudéjar masterpiece is the tower of San Pablo, an octagonal brick shaft rising above the roofs of the Gancho district, west of the old centre. It is part of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon, a UNESCO listing that groups together churches, towers and ceilings built by Muslim craftsmen working for Christian patrons between the twelfth and the seventeenth centuries. The brick is the point. Aragon has little good building stone, and the masons made a virtue of necessity by laying bricks in patterns of lozenges and arches that look like lace.

   Read the complete Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo is where the day begins. Next is Iglesia de Santa María.

2. 2. Iglesia de Santa María

   Somewhere in the folds of the Sierra de Algairén, south-west of Zaragoza, a bell tower pokes up above a cluster of ochre roofs, and that is your Iglesia de Santa María. Half the villages of Aragon have a church of that name, and this one does the job the others do: it marks the middle of a small place where the shop, the bar and the plaza all orbit the same square of stone. The nearest neighbours on the map are Cosuenda, Almonacid de la Sierra and Alpartir, each a few hundred souls, each about nine kilometres off.

   Read the complete Iglesia de Santa María write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Iglesia de Santa María comes up about 72 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva de moncín I.

3. 3. Cueva de moncín I

   Borja is a town of four thousand people in the Ebro valley, but its name is known far beyond Spain, because it is the origin of the Borgia family. Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI, took his surname from this place, and the family's later fame in Italy, for poison, politics and portraits, makes a curious footnote to a quiet farming town. More recently, Borja became famous for a fresco. In 2012, an elderly parishioner's attempt to restore a painting of Christ in the nearby Sanctuary of Mercy turned it into an internet sensation, and visitors have come to see it ever since.

   Read the complete Cueva de moncín I write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 160 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva de moncín I. Next is back through Iglesia de Santa María.

4. 4. back through Iglesia de Santa María

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Iglesia de Santa María write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Iglesia de Santa María, late in the day. Next is Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo.

5. 5. Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo. That is the ride.