A Guided Tour

With the internet a little bit more responsive today I have been able to upload a couple of pictures from yesterday's visit to the Palacio de la Aljaferia 

On the way we passed Zaragoza's bull ring 

Some of the work inside the palace

The Palace from the entranceway

Today we splashed out and went on a guided tour around the Plaza del Pilar area - splashed means spent 4€ with the tourist information guide!

The young man was very informative and did well with his broken English and we learnt that the correct pronunciation of Zaragoza is not Zara- Go-zar but Tha-rah-go-tha! 

The plaza is the biggest pedestrian plaza in Spain and along the north side between the retail area and the rio Ebro sit some very nice buildings, the dominant being the Basilica del Pilar (below). All tourists in this part of the world visit many churches/cathedrals/basilicas and the like all of which ignite the visual senses and this one is no exception, so much so that after the tour ended and we had had lunch we returned for another look.

A "feature" of it, if it can be called a feature is that during the Second World War (3 August 1936 to be precise) two bombs hit the building and came through the roof, both didn't explode and the holes are still clearly visible in the inner ceiling and the unexploded shells are hanging on the wall

 

The Basilica is regarded as a jewel of baroque art in Aragon and succeeds the Gothic one built in 1515 which in turn replaced the Romanesque one destroyed by fire in 1443. The construction of the current building commenced in 1681

Further along there is the Iglesia de San Juan de Los Panetes the external feature of this church being the leaning tower due to the soft ground in the area caused by the proximity of the River Ebro

To the right of the Basilica is La Lonja built by the Council as a Merchant Exchange during the period 1541-1551 but despite its age it is very modern looking!

And not to be outdone there is the Cathedral de El Salvador y Arco del Dean. It is a mix of styles however the talking point re this building is the exterior wall of the Chapel which is regarded as the finest Mudejar art (Moorish or Arabic) in Zaragoza.

We also learnt today that even though there are remains of Roman walls made out of large cut rocks there are in fact no "rocks" in the area from which they could have come so it is thought that the Romans brought these rocks by boat of some description down the river ( we are talking 14BC here ). As a consequence of there being no rocks the other buildings are constructed of bricks though there a mix of both rocks and bricks (predominantly bricks) in the Cathedral.

Francisco de Goya, a native of Aragon and regarded as the most important Spanish artist of the 18th century has a museum of his works here in Zaragoza and time and inclination permitting we may well pay it a visit tomorrow.