Zaragoza! Part Two: Catedral, Basilica, y Castillo

The first night that we were in Zaragoza (Wed, Oct 10), after checking into the "four-star" hotel, we had time to roam the streets and experience an evening in the city. I put four-star in quotations because that's what they said they were. But if it was a true four-star, then there's a HUGE jump between four and five stars. Either that or Europe has a different scale than the US cause the five-star I went to in Sun Valley was WAY nicer than what we stayed in. Don't get me wrong, it was nice, but I was expecting nicer. But whatever.

That first night, I went out with Sharon, Kimberly, Caroline, and Erin in search of shoes for Sharon (her flipflops had broken) and food for all of us. As we were looking for shoes (speaking of which, Spain does not have flipflops ANYWHERE. and crocs are really expensive: 25 euro which is about $40 US. crazy), I managed to separate myself from both Sharon and the others. Sharon had gone ahead to another store. I went to go find her while the others waited. I couldn't find her and when I got back, the others had disappeared. But no pasa nada. I just wandered around the street vendors by myself for awhile looking for them and then when I had decided to go get some food on my own, I ran into some other girls from the school. So all ended well. And I learned that I have absolutely no problem being by myself in the city. Probably not the safest, but oh well.

After supper (Greek gyros, yummy), I went back to the hotel and found Erin and Kimberly. We decided to go out again and wander some more. We ended up at a street concert of some "old" Spanish contemporary group. Basically, the kind of group that used to be cool back in the day, but now is only listened to by the parents.


We crowd-wove our way to the very front, had our ears blasted out for a few minutes and then went back to the hotel around 11:30pm.

Intending to not be tired the next day, I went to bed soon after. But my efforts to sleep all the way till breakfast (9am) were thwarted by the marching band that decided to go marching by at 7:00am right outside our window. Grrr. And they ended up doing it again the next morning too. Silly Spaniards.

Oh, at this point I should probably explain why so much was going on. We were in Zaragoza during the festival "Pilar." Basically, it is celebrating the supposed visit of the Virgen Mary to St. James back in the first century. Legend says that she gave a pillar to build a church upon. Today this same "pillar" is inside the Basilica of Zaragoza and you can stand in line to kiss the back of it.
Or if you're still young enough, you can stand in line and pay to have your picture taken in front of it.


On Thursday, we started the morning off by going to a museum of the Roman foro that used to be in Zaragoza back when the city was called "Caesaraugusta" (it was actually the only city in Europe directly named after the emperor).

Then we went to La Seo, a cathedral right next to the foro museum. More pretty architecture here along with a magnificent organ that I would love to play someday along with mom.

You weren't supposed to take pictures, but I turned my flash off and did anyways. Shame on me.

The cathedral was built first by the Christians and then the Moors added some more on and then it was Catholic again....I think. Anyway, it has both Christian and Moorish aspects to it.

After the cathedral, it was time to go to the Basilica.

Another gorgeous building, but this one also had a tower. Unlike the tower in Valencia, this one had an elevator halfway up and then stairs the rest of the way.

So it wasn't as bad of a hike to the top and the magnificent views of the city, including the Rio Ebro.

Next, we all had free time to both go eat lunch and then walk around and shop or take siesta or whatever. While we were walking the streets we saw this hilarious street performer. He would remain absolutely still except for his face where he had some of the weirdest/hilarious expressions. And if you wanted you could have your picture with him. When you gave him change, he would then bop you on the head with a stuffed mallet that he was hiding under his floppy violin. Quite entertaining. Especially watching little kids trying to toss coins in his jar without getting bopped on the head.

We met up again at 4:30pm to go to Aljaferia, an arabic castle that now also holds the "Cortes de Aragon" (the local legislature).

This castle was super cool and made me feel like I was in the middle of "Arabian Nights."

Arabic architecture is so neat and I think I like it better than neoclassic or romantic or gothic. There's just something about the way the arabs formed their arches.

We went on an actual guided tour here rather than just having our professor Ana Fernandez explain everything to us like she had earlier that day. Our guide took us through both the ancient palace and the current modern governmental section.

One funny part to this visit was that to enter the castle, you have to go through security with a metal detector and everything. Since we thought we were just visiting an ancient castle we were all confused. Were they afraid some Islam radical still mad at the Christians for winning would come by and bomb the national monument? But then we went into the government section and everything made sense. Silly Americans.

Once again, after we got back to the hotel, we had more free time. Katie, Carolyn and I ended up going to see the "jotas," traditional peasant dances. The dancers, musicians, and singers were all fantastic and I love castanets! It's a bit blurry cause the guy in front of me kept moving his head, but here's a short video if you so desire.



Then we wandered around some more, went into some candy stores, decided I needed something better than gummies in the shape of a fried egg,

bought four bonbons for 2.50 euro that were definitely worth it (sorry, no picture), took pics of buildings at night,

including a Christmas building,

went down to another concert (better than last time but still too loud and too late), and then went to bed to get ready for the main event the next day: La Ofrenda de Flores.