Zaragoza

I was a bit disappointed by my visit to Zaragoza. Perhaps I had expected more. Perhaps I was suffering from homesickness (which I was, after six weeks on the road). In any event, I felt like it wasn't all I had thought it might be. It's largely a fairly modern city, not much of that narrow old-Europe feel to it.

Zaragoza does have a Cathedral, but I wasn't really overly impressed by it. Perhaps the churches seen in previous places just left me with that feeling.


It does have a nice palace, with some nice mudejar touches, including some pretty cool ceilings.





There is also remains of the old Roman Forum (in a museum underground, similar to something I saw in Barcelona), and a fairly well-kept Roman theatre.

I did have a nice Italian meal on my last night in Zaragoza. The next morning, I caught a series of trains that left me in Salamanca (again without accomodation) in the early afternoon.

Friendly advice to people trying to make train reservations in Spain: the Renfe staff seem to be pretty bad at the idea of connecting trains. I inquired about travel from Zaragoza to Salamanca, and was advised everything was fully booked. In spite of this, I was able to travel between the two cities in about 5 1/2 hours: train to Madrid (plenty of seats), subway between Madrid-Atocha and Madrid-Chamartin, and train from Madrid to Salamanca (again, plenty of seats).

More friendly advice for the Renfe folks: train stations can be noisy, and communicating with your staff can be difficult if your native language is not Spanish. I had to call Renfe reservations (and speak with an English-speaker) to discover exactly what the issues were in my attempted travel plans.