Possibly the Prettiest Church I Have Seen in Decades

Monday, May 1, 2017--Barcelona to Zaragoza

The train was full today.  As expected, many people were headed home after enjoying a holiday weekend.  (Europe's Labor Day was today.)  Fortunately, I had a reserved seat and no one was allowed to stand on this train.  It traveled at 250 km/h (150 mph)!  We passed a mostly rocky (sandstone), dry area that had lots of orchards and olive groves.  There were also occasionally beautiful bright red patches of poppy blossoms.

The main station in Zaragoza is HUGE and is on the edge of town.  It was difficult to determine how to get out of the massive building.  Then there was a maze of highways and overhead walkways that made it difficult to know which way to go to get across the street so that I would be headed toward town on the right one.

My hotel, the Hotel Avenida, is so much nicer here than where I stayed in Barcelona, and I am only paying $43 per night including breakfast.  It has a very nice mattress, WiFi that is good enough for telephone calls, a very nice bathroom including a huge shower, etc.  It seems as if it has just been remodeled within the past few months.  

After resting in the room while making a couple of phone calls, I went out in the late afternoon explore the center of Zaragoza.  Fortunately, the tourist offices were open even though it is a holiday.  The local office gave me a map and let me climb their tower for rooftop views of the city.  And the regional office for Aragon (as in Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of King Henry VIII of England) gave me information to help me decide between two possible day trips from here.

The central (old) district of Zaragoza is impressive with massive buildings housing very old and elegant shops as well as newer ones.  It was already late in the afternoon, though, so I spent my time visiting just one major tourist site, the Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Pilar, a massive church that is possibly the most beautiful on the inside that I have seen in decades.  It has paintings on the ceilings by Goya and Bayeu.  There is a massive choir with beautiful, hand-carved seats and a very large organ encased in hand-carved wood to match the choir.  There is actually a very pretty church-within-a-church--the Capilla de Nuestra Senora del Pilar which is located behind the alter and serves as the principal location for normal (non-holiday) masses.  It also has ceiling paintings by Goya, Bayeu, and Velazquez.  There are alabaster relief sculptures in more than one location within the church.  Everywhere one looks there is beauty to be seen.

Making my way back to the hotel through local back streets, I came across an outdoor performance about to begin.  Many families were there.  It was a comedy/music act.  A man playing mostly mute and wearing a tuxedo and a mustache did physical comedy and played a ukulele, a cymbal, a kazoo, and a mouth organ.  A large woman in a tight, skimpy, blue sequined dress and hat played the straight part and sang songs.  It was interesting that the woman spoke only English and sang English-language songs.  The crowd was loving it, though, and the kids were roaring over the physical comedy. 

When I left there, I stopped at a small local shop that had a sandwich, fries, and cola menu special.  It was too early to eat a real dinner, yet I was hungry an ready to head to he hotel for the night. 


While waiting in the station in Barcelona for admission to the boarding platform, I finished reading my current book Refund: Stories by Karen E. Binder.  It is another collection of short stories and was short-listed for the National Book Award in 2015.  I found the stories to be well written, but all were essentially depressing.  They were about people facing problems in life.  I appreciated them even though I didn't ever feel good after finishing them.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.