Ansó

In 1272, King James I of Aragón granted Ansó special privileges, giving the town a guardian role over one of the main access routes into the Aragón river valley and the right to graze livestock across the French border. Over a century later, in 1375, Ansó's people acted as arbiters in a boundary and grazing dispute between the Bearnese settlement of Baretous and the Navarrese valley of Roncal. The resulting agreement, known as the Tribute of the Three Cows, fixed annual grazing rights, and Bearnese herders still pay that symbolic tribute today.

In 2015, Ansó joined the official list of Spain's most beautiful villages.

One of Ansó's most distinctive features is its narrow stone passageways, called *arteas*, which run between houses at about fifty centimetres wide, tight gaps that shaped the whole layout of the original village. The parish church of San Pedro is a large Gothic structure built with defence in mind: it has a machicolation and arrow slits, and a Plateresque doorway. Inside there is a baroque altarpiece and a Renaissance processional cross.

The church stands on a site where a place of worship existed much earlier, and its collection of notarial records from 1571 to 1806 is considered significant. Casa Morené, apparently built in 1577 and listed as a protected cultural asset (*BIC*) since 2006, is an example of traditional Ansó architecture and is open to the public as an exhibition space. The surrounding territory is rich in wildlife and landscape.

Ansó is one of the last places in the Pyrenees where native brown bears still live. Key natural sites include the Gamueta beech forest, the mountain lakes of Acherito and Estanés, the Agua Tuerta area where the Aragón Subordán river rises, and a nature interpretation centre.

Ansó lies at about 860 metres in a valley of the Aragonese Pyrenees that shares more than 50 kilometres of border with France. Its old town, one of the best preserved in the Aragonese Pyrenees, is built from local stone, timber and tile, and threaded with arteas, passageways about fifty centimetres wide between the houses. The large sixteenth-century church of San Pedro was built with defence in mind, with a machicolation, arrow slits and a Plateresque doorway.

Ansó's traditional dress is among the richest in Spain, with garments whose origins go back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Museo del Traje Ansotano, in the former hermitage of Santa Bárbara, is devoted to it, and the Fiesta de Exaltación on the last Sunday of August is of national tourist interest. The valley is one of the last places in the Pyrenees with native brown bears, and holds the Gamueta beech forest.

Ansó 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. Ansó is one of 15 members in Aragón, out of 126 in Spain. See all heritage towns in Aragón.

Having your own transport makes a real difference here. There is one bus a day running between Ansó and Jaca, which is the alternative if you arrive without a vehicle. The scenery and terrain are well suited to serious cycling, but there are no bike rentals available locally, so you would need to bring your own.