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Overview

Route options

Three loop options, each starting/ending at Zaragoza (tentative arrival airport — not yet confirmed) and each with its own page including a route map:

All three overlaid

Option A — East Option B — West Option C — Compromise

Shared stops (Zaragoza, Graus, Samitier) are drawn once even though multiple options pass through them — click a leg for which option it belongs to plus real distance/time.

The real constraint driving these options: east vs. west

Isaba/Monasterio de Leyre (Navarra) and Vall de Boí/Vielha/La Seu d'Urgell (Lleida/Val d'Aran) are on opposite sides of the Aragonese Pyrenees — roughly 300 km apart, in close to opposite directions from Zaragoza. Samitier and the Valle de Tena/Graus area sit roughly in the middle and can reasonably extend toward either side, but not comfortably toward both in one trip without a lot of backtracking. Options A and B pick one side each; Option C sidesteps the question by dropping the western cluster (Isaba/Leyre/castles) entirely rather than sampling both thinly.

What's assumed / not yet confirmed

  • Trip window: these are paced against a tentative 29 Aug – 6 Sep 2026 window (9 days) — not yet locked on Final plan. If the real dates differ, the event anchors below shift accordingly.
  • Arrival airport: Zaragoza, tentative (per your note) — not yet booked.
  • San Juan de la Peña is excluded from all three options — currently closed due to the Las Peñas de Riglos wildfire, no reopening date announced. See Sightseeing.
  • Castillo de Canfranc is excluded — lowest priority in the original wishlist, and which of its two distinct structures the Maps pin even means is still unconfirmed (see Sightseeing) — not worth routing around until that's resolved.
  • Pamplona / Castillo de Javier excluded — lowest priority in the original wishlist; would need a 4th, Navarra-only option to include properly rather than bolting on.
  • Event dates used as anchors, with confidence noted:
  • Confirmed: Festa Major de La Seu d'Urgell 28 Aug–1 Sep, Ball Cerdà Sun 30 Aug ~11:00; Alto Gállego stargazing Wed 2 Sep 22:30 (Lanuza); Panticosa guided tour Wednesdays through 6 Sep. See Events & festivals.
  • NOT confirmed for 2026, treated as bonus-if-real, not planned around: EMTP Graus (~26–30 Aug), Era Hèsta de Vielha (~5–11 Sep — also mostly falls after the assumed window).
  • Outside the assumed window entirely: the Wed 26 Aug El Pueyo de Jaca stargazing session (before 29 Aug) and Festa Major de Durro (8–13 Sep, after 6 Sep) — neither is reachable under the 29 Aug–6 Sep assumption.
  • Each option's map shows real road-routed driving legs (via OSRM's free public routing API — no account/API key needed, unlike openrouteservice, so nothing to handle per .agents/skills/local-secrets-handling/SKILL.md), not straight lines — click a leg on the map for its exact distance/time. These are routing-engine estimates, not checked against live traffic; use each page's Google Maps directions link for traffic-aware timing. Real driving turned out meaningfully longer than straight-line distance suggested — e.g. Option A's Zaragoza↔Graus leg is 156 km / ~2h03 each way, not the ~117 km straight-line figure an earlier draft of these pages used.

See also: Sightseeing · Activities · Hiking · Events & festivals.