Our 2012 travels: Last day in Zaragoza

When we booked our apartment, we had read mixed reviews about the noise from the square. The clock chimes every 15 minutes during the day, but only once an hour at night. During the day, the hustle and bustle of the plaza is fine, but at 4am, it is more of a problem. Perhaps it's the bars closing but there is plenty of disturbance from groups of people. The noise just seems to bounce off the buildings and arrive through the apartment's metal shutters and double glazed windows. The people are followed by a street cleaner, which is, at least, quieter.

Having noticed the difficulty of photographing the wall of the cathedral in the plaza, John rushed out before breakfast to record the sun falling on the walls.
It was rebuilt starting in 1316 and is a world heritage building (we seem to have been ticking them off recently)

This is a detail that we prepared earlier

After breakfast, we set out with a list of things to see, with the Cathedral first. This is much more impressive than the basilica nearby. Rather than being a unified church it was made up of two dozen chapels dating from the 15th century. The impressive alter piece below was created in 1434.

This is the Chapel of the Archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael from the end of the 16th century

The Cathedral is also home to a museum of tapestries. Pat is always interested to see needlework and so we went up the the museum to browse. We had not realised just how special this collection is. The collection comprises 63 tapestries and the first reference to the collection was in 1499. Less than half of the collection is on display and so far, only 3 have been restored. It really is well worth a visit.

We particularly liked this scene of the devil tied up - a detail from a large tapestry of the crucifixion and resurrection. Christ is carrying the flag of St George and the black area is John's cap hiding the camera from the security cameras.

Our next stop was the first century roman amphitheatre of Caesar Augustus which was discovered in 1972 while excavating for a new building. All the marble has long gone, incorporated into other buildings over the centuries, but the essential structure still exists.

Naturally, there is a museum to go with it.

The amphitheatre reminded us very much of Orange.

You can see here just how close modern buildings are to the amphitheatre and how the road level has risen over 2000 years.

A number of other roman remains have been discovered since 1972, a baths and a forum, which is right next the the Cathedral. We tried to visit the baths, but they were closed.

Our next stop was the Islamic palace of Aljafería built in the 11th century. We were only able to see it from the outside, and even that was not easy. It has a large moat and is guarded - something was obviously going on as there was a crowd around the car access gate.

Our final stop of the day was about 2km away at the Parque Grande José Antonio Labordeta. We walked along main streets with trams in more modern areas that we had not seen before. By the time we reached the park, we were tired and were planning to take the tram back as far as we could.

The park was busy with people sitting in the sun and groups of children being taken out.

At the far end if the park is a statue with steps up to it and water around, reminiscent of Tivoli.

As we approached the first fountain, it sprang into life, quickly followed by the second fountain. The water was not coloured blue - the fountain in shade is just picking up the blue of the evening sky.

John climbed to the top to take a photo in the other direction

We hopped on a tram to the Grand Via

And passed this very interesting post box.

We called into a larger El Corte Ingles and found a few difficult-to-find things that Pat was searching for and then headed for home, passing the Museo Pablo Gargallo on the way