Benasque

Benasque may have Roman origins — the first sulphurous baths were reportedly built here by Romans — though nothing is documented. The oldest written record, the Rótulo de Benasque, dates from between 1006 and 1018, by which point the town belonged to the County of Ribagorza, within the Kingdom of Aragón. A major earthquake struck in 1660, and the Ésera river has flooded catastrophically several times, destroying bridges on each occasion.

A castle once stood on the hill north of town until a Royal Decree ordered its demolition in 1858. The Spanish Civil War left deep scars: fire destroyed much of the town and killed many residents, and in 1939 the mountain pass above Benasque saw Republicans making a desperate crossing into France.

The Church of Santa María la Mayor began as a Romanesque building, later modified in subsequent centuries. The Palace of the Counts of Ribagorza is a Renaissance structure in stone, with elegant windows. It passed through several lives — seat of the county's rulers, then a customs house, then a Republican military post during the Civil War — and today operates as a cultural centre. Two other notable buildings are Casa Juste, which has a striking tower, and Casa Faure. A medieval bridge also survives in the town.

Beyond the streets, the municipality takes in three major mountain massifs. The Maladeta massif includes Aneto (3,404 m), the highest peak in the Pyrenees. The Posets massif centres on Posets (3,375 m), and the Perdiguero massif reaches 3,222 m. The valley still holds the largest glaciers in the Pyrenees — the Aneto glacier covers around 75 hectares — though all are retreating due to climate change. There are also numerous mountain lakes, among them Cregüeña and Batisielles. A remarkable karst feature called Forau de Aigualluts swallows glacial meltwater underground, which resurfaces in the Valle de Arán and eventually feeds the Garona river.