We hopped on our 603 bus again this morning for the
half-hour run into Zaragoza, alighting near the Aljaferia Palace, an 11th
century Moorish palace, only to find that it is closed today and tomorrow “due
to political activities” – whatever that means.
Never mind; we’ll have another shot on Saturday. We walked on to the Iglesia de San Pablo
(Church of St Paul), a Gothic/Mudéjar church dating from the late 13th
century. While not huge, it contains an
enormous, finely-detailed altarpiece depicting the arrest, trial and crucifixion
of Christ as well the conversion and eventual beheading of St Paul.
From there we made our way to the temporary central market
set up to trade while the historic Central Market is being completely
refurbished. It was densely packed and a
hive of activity with stall after stall of fresh fruit and vegetables, meats,
poultry and seafood.
From there we continued on for a stroll back through the
main plaza, past the cathedral and the basilica, to the remains of the 1st
century Roman theatre and baths. A very
interesting display, although most of the descriptive plaques were only in
Spanish. We were invited to view a short
video, however that was also in Spanish, with French subtitles, and from what
we could work out it had nothing to do with the theatre or the baths, so we
moved on.
We wandered down the length
of the Paseo de la Independencia, noting how closely Zaragoza's trams resemble Newcastle's (didn't we buy them from Spain?), then on to our bus for the ride home.
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