Albarracín: Spain's most beautiful town

Hola amigos, ¿qué tal? Stuart here from Spain Speaks on the road again and we are in the province of Teruel which is in the autonomous community of Aragon and we're on our way to one of Spain's most picturesque and beautiful villages, if not the most beautiful village in Spain. In fact it was voted by the readers of El Pais newspaper as the most beautiful town or village in Spain last year and it is Albaracin. Now Albaracin is about three and a half hours east of Madrid and about two hours northwest of Valencia so it's not difficult to get to. There's no major highways connecting this part of the world with big cities so you've got to go on to some of the more local roads but that's all part of the adventure of driving around Spain. Now Teruel, this area in Spain is one of Spain's forgotten areas. In fact there was a campaign a few years ago which tried to bring the province of Teruel to people's attention because it's one of these areas in Spain where a lot of people have to leave to find a job. It's very rural, there's lots of agriculture, lots of farming so really there's not a lot of jobs and chances here for young people so in order to stop people leaving and try to bring people here from a tourist point of view there was an advertising campaign a few years ago called Teruel Existe. But this particular village Albaracin is in my opinion and obviously the opinion of lots of other people one of the most spectacular places to visit in Spain. We were here about 12-13 years ago and it was spectacular then and I'm sure that it's going to be even more spectacular now given the rise of tourism over the last few years. When we first came here it was not easy to get accommodation, it wasn't easy to find good restaurants but I've been told that all of that has changed so we'll probably be able to get a nice lunch here as well on this trip to Albaracin. Now one thing you'll notice about this village is that it's like stepping back in time, it's like going back to the days when the Moors were controlling Spain and in fact this place was an important part of the Moorish empire and you can see that a lot of the architecture very medieval and Moorish in that sense. The village sort of winds around a river, you start at the bottom and you work your way to the top. You can't take cars up to the higher parts or at least tourists can't so you have to park down the bottom and then you walk up the narrow streets until you get to the top. Not everybody can make it to the top, it's a fairly steep trek but when you do get to the top the views are magnificent and there's an old fortress at the top of the village as well which has some spectacular views of the city and the surrounding areas. Now apparently Albaracin was in ruins until about 60 years ago until it was rebuilt but it is a magnificent place to see and as I said before well worth a visit should you be coming to Spain or if you are living in Spain. So that's all I've got, so enjoy the look around Albaracin and I'll see you in the next video. Hasta luego.