Five mountain towns to fall madly in love with the Pyrenees

• Discover Andalusia in 10 unique inland towns

• Getaways Five of the most beautiful towns in Spain that you have to visit

Not long ago, the Pyrenees were recognized as the best mountain destination in the world.

With peaks of more than 3,000 meters, the natural barrier between the peninsula and the rest of Europe attracts the traveler with its landscape and charming rural corners where you want to spend the whole summer.

These are some of the towns that you absolutely must visit if what we like is to put on our boots and climb the mountain.

Torla-Ordesa (Sobrarbe)

At the foot of the Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park, the second oldest in Spain (since 1918) and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is a magical place to do

trekking.

And the starting point is precisely Torla, at 1,033 m.

altitude, and under the gaze of the imposing Mondarruego massif,

one of the most iconic photos of the Pyrenees.

The trip to the Middle Ages is guaranteed in this town of El Sobrarbe with just over 200 inhabitants and a border spirit.

In addition to the

, from the 16th century, and the remains of the castle, now converted into

, the pretty streets of Torla reveal a good handful of manor houses.

The town center of this Pyrenean jewel also has a wide range of bars and restaurants where you can recharge your batteries after a day of hiking.

Torla under the snowy peaks.SHUTTESTOCK

Anso (La Jacetania)

Another emblem of the Pyrenees and, by titles, that is, one of the most beautiful towns in Spain.

We feel again that

that made it enjoy privileges granted by the different Aragonese kings for centuries.

Ansó conserves one of the best preserved urban centers

, a network of squares and very narrow streets or

with barely 50 centimeters and which constitute one of its hallmarks.

Another is the Ansotan costume, an ethnological treasure that has a museum.

It is one of the oldest garments in Europe that the residents of this small town continued to use until the 1970s.

Anciles (La Ribagorza)

Two kilometers from Benasque in La Ribagorza, this tiny village also usually appears on the list of the most beautiful on the peninsula.

It is the corner chosen by the wealthiest families in the valley, as shown by the great

of the 16th and 17th centuries, often covered with lintel doors, towers and chapels, and topped with slate roofs.

Ask for Casa Suprián or Casa Barrau.

It's worth taking a look.

The best thing is that this fairy-tale postcard is also just a stone's throw away from Posets Maladeta Park.

Anciles, in the Benasque Valley.

Arties (Aran Valley)

In the Arán Valley we could talk about Bausen, Bagergue... about so many towns where hardly anyone would object to staying all summer.

Arties is the

town to which skiers from Baqueira make a pilgrimage every night for dinner and a drink.

By day, however, this Aranese corner at 1,143 meters above sea level at the confluence of the Valarties River with the Garonne, offers priceless views of Mount Montgarri and a Romanesque church, that of Santa María, which leaves visitors speechless with its mural paintings and his little graveyard.

Stroll through its cobbled streets and those

It is a ritual in this Lleida valley.

Just as it is to enjoy a pincho in the now classic Urtau after a day of walking or sliding down the slopes.

Arties is small but it is full of gastronomic surprises and a whole bunch of hotels ranging from hostels to more boutique establishments and passing through a Parador Nacional.

The church of Santa María, in Arties.

Bellver (Cerdanya)

One of the most beautiful towns in La Cerdanya and Prullens, also in this beautiful and vast Catalan valley, is a tough rival.

The tour of the municipality invites visitors to get lost in an old neighborhood of cobbled streets and country houses, where we can see the Plaça Major del 27 de Abril, where the Mercat used to be, and Cal Patanó, located on Calle de la Amargura, where the writer Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer spent a few days.

Also to go out and look for some of its churches that take us back to the primitive Romanesque.

There are a large number of them, most of them built in the 10th century, but don't miss the church of Santa María de Talló, on the left bank of the River Segre.

Bellver of Cerdanya.

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