Zaragoza - Spain

The Aljaferia - Moorish Palace 

We had a week's holiday in Spain at the end of summer. I think Spain must be our favourite country in Europe, just going off how many times we have visited there. It's sitting at 3 times since we've been here, which is definitely the most-visited country. And I gotta say I can't see that changing anytime soon. It's such a great country, the weather is always good, the outdoors are great, the food and wine are all good, and so long as you plan it so that you can handle the 8:30pm mealtimes, you are set.

Courtyard in the Aljaferia

Some great designs in the palace

This time we were off to the Pyrenees, one of the gateways is Zaragoza, which is about 2 hours drive from the Pyrenees. And the best thing is that there are direct flights from Stansted, you gotta love what easyJet is doing for these little towns. I was pretty impressed with Zaragoza, it's the capital of Aragon, and nearly all the people in that region live there. The infrastructure in this place is incredible, way better than anything London has, and it all looks brand new, huge highways, massive train station, enormous airport. I'm not sure where they get the money from, apparently it's the 5th contributor to Spain's GDP, but I think there may be a bit of a gap between these top 5 regions.

Good ceiling in the Golden Hall

The runway in Zaragoza is something to be seen, it is massive. It was earmarked as a contingency site if the space shuttle had to abort. That gives you some idea as to how big this runway is. And yet when you come in from Stansted it's just your plane, on this massive tarmac. If I had been allowed, I would have definitely have taken a photo.

There are probably two main attractions in the town, the Aljaferia and the Basilica del Pilar. We visited the Aljaferia first, it's a Moorish palace built in the 11th century. It's been massively restored and now it's where the Aragonese parliament is housed. Pretty nice surrounds for a parliament. After visiting this I am really keen to go to Granada as this was a pretty cool palace, but I think the Alhambra is another level. It's strange to think that Arabs were so far north in Europe, just on the other side of the Pyrenees from France. But after the Romans fell I guess there was a bit of a power vacuum in Aragon.

The moorish architecture really seems to suit Spain, you have this fierce heat and then these green courtyard full of water. Running around the courtyards are these lovely cool corridors, everything is open so there is always a nice breeze, and just looking out over the water seems somehow cooling. They did have some good ceilings too, these really decorated ceilings, with golden pineapples, I'm not sure what they symbolise.

The amphitheatre ruins

Zaragoza has a really great old town, I would not have picked that without going there. These tiny little alley-ways full of tapas restaurants. It was here that I decided I really have to learn a bit of Spanish, even if it's just enough to order food. We tried to order what someone else was having, and ended up with just a plate of breadcrumbs. They were good breadcrumbs, but still it wasn't quite what we were expecting.

I also didn't appreciate how much of a Roman city Zaragoza was, it's name comes from CaeserAugustus which was what the Romans called it. And there are some great ruins here, which they have done up really well. There is the Amphitheatre, which was huge, the market place and sewers and the baths. I'm not sure where all the money comes to restore these ruins to such a high degree, the amphitheatre really was amazing. And it's right in the middle of houses. Also they went over the whole history of the town, not just the Roman period, so you got a feel of how the city has changed.

A small section of the Basilica

 Perhaps what is most famous about this town in Spain is the main church, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar. The story goes that Mary appeared to James the apostle and gave him a column of jasper and a statue of herself and told him to build a church in her honour. It is this column and statue which, supposedly, are still in the church today. When we visited there was a massive line of people to kiss the statue, but it wasn't as if a special big deal was made of it. It was kind of around the back from the tabernacle, I was kind of expecting it to be inside the tabernacle, but it's actually just in a wall.

It was a fun little break before our main holiday in Spain - the Pyrenees!

Mountain Trail Challenge

Looking back to Pen-y-Fan

After our successful Skye trip Dave and I were looking for another challenge, but one that combined hiking with competition, because we just haven't done enough of that, or in fact any. Surprisingly enough it does actually exist, we were searching around the web and we found the Mountain Trail Challenge. To be honest, they are very clear in saying that they aren't a race, but I can inject competition into anything.

You can do either 20 or 30 miles through the Brecon Beacons. Having never been to the Beacons, even though they are pretty close to London, 2 hours on a train + 40mins by car, we couldn't really say no. We chose the 20 miler - that's 32km. It's a pretty easy 32km though, you have one major uphill - Pen-y-Fan, which is definitely a good climb. But the track is really good the whole way round, and navigation is not an issue. The organisers did such a great job marking the turns that you didn't really need the map or the route notes. I was surprised at how many people there were, there must have been 500 people out there.

Coming off Pen-y-Fan

It did have a really good feeling, and the route was a good one. It only took us 7hours and 40mins, which for 32kms is not bad. Quite a contrast with the 12 hours that we took in Skye. What a difference a good track and minimal ascent has. It was also good training for next week, where we are off camping in the Grand Canyon.

The lowest point was when I realised I was getting blisters on the balls of my feet. I've never had that before, and it wasn't due to any rubbing since they were totally fine 2 days later. I think it was just due to the pressure on the feet. We were really smashing out the kms and I think my feet just started to rebel. I am usually a soft office worker after all. It did make the last 5kms less than fun, but once they were drained everything was fine.

The long slog up Pen-y-Fan

The only downside to the whole event was since the race is held from the National Park visitor's centre, which has a cafe on site, they couldn't offer any food at the end. Normally with these sorts of events there would be a big hash house where you could get a plate of something and relax with everyone else who had finished. But they weren't allowed to do that because of the cafe. And the worst thing was the cafe stopped serving food at 4pm, so we couldn't even get anything to eat when we finished. Kind of sucky on the visitors centre part.

A well-earned rest

I think if I was to do it again I might try the 30 miler and try and run a bit of it. There were a few groups which were obviously running it, you just travel really light and keep moving. I think so long as the weather is nice you could do that no worries. Would be a pretty tough day, but I wonder if the hurty-feet syndrome I sometimes get is just down to the hours on the feet, and that if I did it quicker they would hurt less. Of course it's entirely possible that if I ran 30 miles places other than my feet would be hurting a lot more!

The Brecon Beacons are pretty famous in the UK purely because it's where the British Army train. And they really do train there, we saw a lot of army people slogging up Pen-Y-Fan, we only had to carry a day pack. They had to carry massive overnight backpacks, and a gun (I'm not sure if it was a real gun). Though after having walked there, it didn't seem that tough, it's got those gentle, rolling British hills, and it's also very open, not much chance of falling down a cliff. Though last year a couple of army reservists died out there, I think it was dehydration, which goes to show, if things go bad, anywhere outdoors can be dangerous.