We are getting the hang of Spanish mountain villages and the fact that you enter them at you peril. There will be an exit off the main road that quickly turns into a precipitous climb. The road will narrow till you are almost scraping your wing mirrors on the walls of buildings. Then there will be several 90 degree turns which necessitate several attempts in order not to scrape the front wings of the car. Then there will be a a junction with several turns and exits with no indication of where to go. We were totally defeated by this town and had to reverse down a steep incline as the turns were just too heart stopping to attempt. Gill had to walk behind the car guiding me backwards as I tried to find somewhere to turn rather like the flag wavers that accompanied the first automobiles to warn passers-by of their danger.

We parked the car at the base of the steep hill that led to the town and walked to the hotel.  The owner was very understanding of our predicament and said that he himself had had difficulty when he first moved to the town. He offered to walk back down to the car and guide me. As we descended through the steep alleys he was laughing and expressed his incredulity that I had not managed to get any further. He sat beside me and guided me out and around the base of the town. I realised the reason for his amusement. I had missed the main road into  the town which, although steep, did not present any major difficulties. Instead had launched my shiny new hire car I to the equivalent of a goat track with scrapy stone walls.

Anyway we were glad to come to rest.  The owner of the hotel, Carlos, tells me he has worked as a Chef  in Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga and judging by the extremely expensive Jaguar parked by the hotel was doing very well. However he decided that he had had enough and came to this tiny mountain village. We discovered that night that he is a chef of quite some talent as our meal was superb. If he has one fault it is that his portions are enough for two people. I ordered lamb chops and was presented with a plate of 12 superbly cooked thin chops.  

We went to visit the 11th century  castle of Loarre about 15 k s from here and will let the photographs speak for themselves. From there we went to Rigole and again words are not rally adequate to describe this extraordinary geological phenomenon.