Tourists crawl all over the Iberian peninsula like ants at a picnic, but hardly any venture into this quietly beautiful and fascinating area of Spain. If they did, they'd find that there are no shops selling medieval jesters hats or plastic swords, or restaurants with laminated pictures of tourist menus. There's no hinterland of modern buildings or McDonald's - just winding, cobbled streets, meandering through an ancient settlement perched on the cliffs of a precipitous gorge. Albarracin is a Spanish Aragonese pueblo that has changed little since the Middle Ages.
The surrounding countryside boasts crystal-clear rivers stocked with trout, fragrant pine forests, ochre-red rock formations, soaring golden eagles and 6,000-year-old Paleolithic cave drawings. So how has it managed to remain so unspoilt? The preservation of Albarracin is thanks mainly to the common sense and munificence of the Moors from North Africa. Developing the site from a Roman fort, the Moors created a highly successful community that became pivotal in medieval Islamic Spain. Once a separate kingdom in its own right, prosperous and essentially peaceful, the city drifted into obscurity only in modern times.
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