Hiking in the Teruel, Albarracin, Cuenca region of Spain

La Ciudad Encantada next to Cuenca is always interesting to visit. It's a protected nature site with many large and unusual rock formations created through the erosion of the Júcar river, which makes it look like an "Enchanted City", which is its namesake in Spanish. Many films were shot here, including Conan the Barbarian with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The entrance fee is only 4 € :) not sure how to get there without a car.

In Spain there is typically no regular bus service out to where most hiking trails are, most locals have/rent a car. Even the mountain towns you mention, like Albarracín are difficult to reach with public transport.

Thanks so much for your reply. We will definitely visit the hiking place you recommend....in a rented car!

in a rented car!

Great idea! If you will have a car handy, you could also consider the drive from Cuenca to Albarracín that goes through the Serrania de Cuenca National Park, there are plenty of trails, lookouts, old castles, and long forgotten villages to explore along the way. I guarantee you will be one of the only foreign tourists in that National Park, a hidden gem!

I actually did the drive from Cuenca to Albarracín via the Serrania de Cuenca National Park a few years ago, definitely was an adventure. Here are some videos of my visit (towards the end of the album): https://photos.app.goo.gl/eGELNBMmMJXRVfpy5

A car is highly recommended in that area. I doubt that there are decent transit links between Cuenca and Teruel; they are on separate rail lines, so you'd probably have to travel by way of Valencia. There is bus service from Teruel to Albarracin, but the outbound bus runs in the afternoon and the return bus leaves Albarracin early in the morning. You need to spend two nights in Abarracin to have more than a few waking hours there.

I was told there's good rock climbing in the Albarracin area.

Teruel is a very attractive, non-touristy place with some mudejar towers. Cuenca has a neat, hilltop historic district and a couple of small modern-art museums.

There is a walk right at Albarracín, Paseo Fluvial. Río Guadalaviar that goes around the base of the town. Between Teruel and Albarracín is Camino Natural del Rio Guadalaviar. I believe neither is more than 5 or 6km in length. There are other hiking trails in the Pinares de Rodeno, protected countryside, but I haven’t looked into them.

Teruel Tourism has several PDF guides for hiking in the region.
The guides includes different hiking routes for each "comarca" in the province. They also provide contact information for different companies and guides for the area.

Thank you, thank you everyone who is writing responses to my question about the Teruel/Cuenca region. I imagine we are all benefitting from the sharing of travel information.

Also if you are interested in Ancient Roman history, close to Cuenca there is Segobriga, the extensive ruins of a Roman provincial town that was completely abandoned during the very early middle ages, only recently begun excavations, totally undiscovered by foreign tourists.

Segobriga is fairly isolated in the plateau of La Mancha (one of the reasons why it survived), I stopped there with a car driving from Toledo to Cuenca, there is a small museum on site and the entrance fee was only 6 euros. I have some photos in the album I linked above. If you have a chance to stop by I would highly recommend, you basically have the ruins of an ancient Roman town all to yourself.

Here is the official website (only in Spanish) but has good images and a areal video: https://cultura.castillalamancha.es/patrimonio/parques-arqueologicos/segobriga