Aínsa

Aínsa's main monuments are its castle and the Collegiate Church of Santa María. The wider municipality also holds two prehistoric dolmens, the Dolmen de la Capilleta and the Dolmen de Pueyoril, along with a cluster of rural churches including San Salvador de Guaso, Santa Eulalia de Olsón, and San Martín en Santa María de Buil. The defensive Torre de Arcusa and Castillo de Tou round out a surprisingly varied collection of heritage sites across the area.

Aínsa stands on a height where the rivers Cinca and Ara meet in northern Huesca, between the Ordesa y Monte Perdido national park and the natural parks of Guara and Posets-Maladeta. The old town on the hill kept its medieval buildings and layout because, from the 1940s, commercial life moved down to the road junction below.

The town grew in two walled stages, the first from the eleventh or twelfth century and the second in the fourteenth and fifteenth, when the walls reached the castle and the Plaza was laid out. Five of its seven old gates survive, and the castle and the collegiate church of Santa María are its main monuments. The festival of La Morisma recalls the legend of the Cruz de Sobrarbe, a glowing cross over a holm oak that gave Christian troops the courage to win back the town; it is still the emblem of Sobrarbe.

Aínsa joined Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España in 2015. The label is awarded by a private association, not the state: a village applies and is audited against around 40 criteria, from how its historic buildings are conserved to the upkeep of its streets, and members are reviewed and can lose it. Aínsa is one of 15 members in Aragón, out of 126 in Spain. See all heritage towns in Aragón.

Roads A-138 and N-260 cross at Aínsa. The A-138 runs north to the French A64 via the Bielsa tunnel (100 km) and south to the Spanish A-22 at Barbastro (60 km), the usual route from Barcelona (290 km), Zaragoza (180 km), Valencia (440 km), and Madrid (495 km). The N-260 heads east to Castejón de Sos (50 km) and west to Sabiñánigo and Jaca, serving Pamplona (190 km) and San Sebastián (275 km).

Regular buses run from Barbastro and Sabiñánigo. Supermarkets include Día and Eroski City, with the organic Supermercado Maradeta next to the Día and butcher Carnicería Badias around the corner. Most restaurants are on Plaza and Calle Mayor: Casa Alfonso (Plaza Mayor 17, regional cooking), Bodegón Mallacan (Plaza Mayor 6, Pyrenean cuisine), Pizzería Plaza Mayor (Plaza Mayor 21), and Restaurante Alberto (Calle Río Cinca 1, near the river; tel. +34 699 970909).