The municipal camping at Zaragoza is brand new, not even a year old. When it matures it will be a nice place with excellent facilities. It borders a canal which was ideal for Pooch walking. Unfortunately, it was design
ed by the municipal architects, none of whom were aware of what a tent looks like, let alone a caravan, or dare I say it, a motorhome. They designed and built a very impressive reception building with a narrow driveway to approach it, then a neat 90deg turn into the camping. Even moderately sized units would struggle to get in, let alone anything our size. Fortunately Alberto, the amazingly helpful chap on reception, let us in through the service gate. It was through this gate we had to reverse out of to leave two days later; no room to swing round going forwards! Our pitch is the biggest I’ve ever seen. We could have got four Rvs on easily and I reversed on to pitch with the MINI on the trailer! It was that big.
Tired, we ate, played Scrabble and went to bed early. Following morning I decided I’d like a look at Zaragoza. I had seen the website and there appeared to be plenty of history and interesting architecture to look at. The city map I picked up in reception had lots of landmarks on it, so my curiosity was piqued. We took the no 41 bus into town which dropped us at landmark #1, La Puerta Carmen. This was the gateway to the ancient city; it’s interesting to think that the city has grown so big it took half an hour to get from the outskirts on the bus. And as the bus driver thought he was Fernando Alonso, that’s quite a long way!
Next was the old medical university which has statues of the four founding fathers sat outside the front doors. Other than that it was a fairly plain brick building. From here we wandered down the Paseo de la Independencia, Zaragoza’s main drag, sheltering from the cutting breeze. It was a tad chill, especially after La Manga. We stopped at a café bar for a cup of tea. The place was buzzing. It was a long, slim café, with a long slim bar running halfway down the right hand wall. On the
bar were display cabinets with delicious looking pastires and other goodies, many featuring chocolate. There was a range of teas and coffees to be had and the wall behind the bar had two shelves crammed with every alcoholic beverage known to man! In front of the bar were tables and chairs and at the bar were stools. Now, something we learnt whilst in Spain is this. If you want an idea of how good a bar is, just look at the floor under the stools. If it’s covered in litter, then the bar must be popular, therefore it must be good. It’s the done thing to throw your sugar wrappers, fag ends and any other bits of detritus from your sojourn at the bar on to the floor. And the floor only gets swept at night, after closing. The rest of the place can, and most invariably will be, spotless as was this café was. Something about this practice makes me smile – it seems so right somehow!Warmed through, we went to a tourist info office, got what we needed there and headed off into the old town to see the sights. First off, the Roman amphitheatre. It was closed, so no close looks but it could clearly be seen from the street. It is covered by an impressive glass roof. There’s about half of it left and it looks as though it was well interpreted. From there we headed for the Basillica del Pilar. This is a huge building, about the size of York minster. Inside there is a main altar with an impressive carved stone altar piece
and a smaller chapel behind it where there was a service being held. Marble and gold leaf was very much in evidence. The ceilings were created by Goya and there’s a museum holding some of the original sketches. The archiructure is impressive as are all the frills and furbelloes, but despite the service taking place, the place is now so much of an attraction I didn’t feel too much of a sense of spiritualism. Or maybe I was just feeling that side out. We visited a tiny, run down chapel which had a great feel to it, so maybe not.The square outside the Basillica has been reworked and is a vast open space with the La Seo church and tower at one end and a very fine water feature at the other. From this, we walked towards the Palacio de la Aljeferia, the one and only Moorish palace in this part of Northern Spain. It was closing for lunch by the time we got there, so we went in search of some ourselves. We chose a restaurant which looked OK and had a nice sounding, if a little more expensive, menu. What a bloody disaster. The food was awful and we didn’t have the language to complain, although the fact we didn’t eat much of it spoke volumes. They still charged us for it even though I said it had been bad. Maybe I should have just refused?
We wandered back to the palace but it was still closed, so we had a walk around the perimeter. It is surrounded by a big, deep moat and the front is typically Moorish in design. The rear was obviously remodelled at some time and two thirds of the whole building appears to be offices. I took some photos ( not easy to do with all the cars and trucks parked outside) and then we decided to head back for the bus.
So far, I’ve painted a fairly neutral picture of Zaragoza but I was really disappointed with the place. It has no sense of history. There are these wonderful landmark buildings but for the most part the rest of the city is new and redeveloped and there seems to be no tangible link between old and new, no historical time line. The only narrow backstreets we came across had been modernised and also had a menacing feel to them. It felt as though it was a new city with some old buildings put in it for effect. It was a shame really as for me, it promised much and delivered little. I’m glad I went to satisfy my curiosity, but it wasn’t worth it.
