Day 111: Tarragona/Zaragoza, Spain

We were able to get in a lot of sightseeing today. We started in Tarragona where we spent the morning visiting the sites we missed while things were closed yesterday. Then we drove halfway to Madrid to the city of Zaragoza and took the quick tour to the major sights there.


(A picture of our hotel which is located in the main square of the old town. Ilana is standing on our balcony on the 5th floor [ground floor is counted as 'zero' in Europe].)

In Tarragona we visited two more old Roman sites before jumping in the car for Zaragoza.


(Far left in the shadows is the original Roman wall. A second wall was built during the 14th century which contains the old cannons.)


(Excavation at this sights has yielded Roman columns as well as structural evidence of housing.)




(A random building in town. Ilana really liked look of these guys climbing the side of the building and helping each other up.)

It took roughly three hours to make it to Zaragoza and we were pleasantly surprised. The city is the capital of this region of Spain but is not known for being a tourist destination. We chose the two biggest attractions and walked the city for the afternoon/evening. After grabbing a quick bite to eat we visited the Basilica de El Pilar (Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar). This church has become a major holy site as an apparition of Mary supposedly appeared to St James the apostle while praying in the nearby Ebro River, giving him a statue of herself on a pillar and instructing him to build a church in her honor. People come to pray and touch the pillar, which we touched for good luck. The church is relatively newer than most of the others we've seen in Spain and was built in the 17th century as previous versions where destroyed for one reason or another.


(Ilana in front of the Basilica.)


(Inside the church. Baroque style, much different from the Gothic churches we've been seeing mostly.)


(We rode the elevator up one of the towers of the Basilica.)





Our second stop was that of the Palacio de la Aljaferia. Built during the 11th century by the Arab rulers of the time it is now where the regional parliament meets. Obviously tourists can walk through.





And just some other random photos of Zaragosa as we walked around.


(The Puerta del Carmen. The last standing city gate from the 18th century.)


(The Iglesia de Santiago.)


(The view in another direction in the tower of the Basilica.)


(The huge square near the Basilica (which is halfway up the left side of the photo). In the far distance is yet another cathedral.)


(The Plaza de Basilio Paraiso has a fountain in the middle.)


(Iglesia de San Juan de los Panetes. The tower is slightly leaning from an explosion.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaragoza

A good day overall but tiring. We still have to get up early and driving another 3-4 hours back to Madrid. We are in the home stretch now!

FJ