After spending a cloudy day working and getting all our washing done at a self service laundry in Fuentes del Ebro, we reached the village of Rodén in the evening. During the Civil War (1936-39) the village was destroyed and abandoned. The new village lies now below, with the ruins on the hill preserved to remind us of the past.
Rodén consisted of about eighty houses that formed a crescent on the side of a hill that was crowned by the church and the castle. It had a town hall, school, shops, flour and oil mills. After the war, only few returned to the village, building new houses in the valley.
We spent the night next to the abandoned village and will drive to Zaragoza the next day to explore the city at the rio Ebre and its huge cathedral, which we only saw from a distance until now. More on our next post!