Halfway between Manzanera and Mora de Rubielos the car radio signal dies. The rest is silence, and a lonely road winding through a high plateau ringed with crags and pine forests. The shepherd leading his flock through the dry stalks of a fallow field is the only person I see on this half-hour journey.
Welcome to Gúdar Javalambre. This remote county in eastern Spain covers 2,350 sq km but contains only 24 villages and fewer than 9,000 inhabitants. It belongs to Teruel, one of the three provinces of Aragón and a region best known in Spain for Teruel Existe (“Teruel exists”), a citizens’ campaign launched in 2000 to call for more investment and to fight depopulation. This land of massive skies and tiny population densities — as low as 3.7 people per square kilometre — reminds you how vast and empty much of Spain still is, away from the boisterous cities and teeming coasts.
Gúdar Javalambre’s efforts to forge a future are a fine example of the adage that necessity is the mother of invention. The climate here can be harsh and the soil is too poor and dry for arable agriculture. Communications are not all they could be. Yet the county is doing what it can to get ahead. As interest grows in lesser-known parts of Spain’s unspoilt interior, visitors are increasingly being drawn to Gúdar Javalambre’s wild natural beauty and gourmet products, such as its superb air-dried ham. There is good infrastructure at ski resorts such as Valdelinares and Javalambre, and the new A23 motorway has brought Valencia airport within a 90-minute drive. The absence of light pollution in the skies — plus the news that Galáctica, an observatory/museum of global importance, is scheduled to open here this year — has led to the rise of “astro-tourism” in the county, with guided starlight walks.