Whenever I go on a road trip and travel abroad, on my way back, my mom sends me messages asking where we are and did we arrived at our (that day's) destination... As the trip lasts 3 days, that's intense messaging for all 3 days... 😃 On the last day, when we are entering Spain, I send her a message... Almost always, the response is: "I'm glad that you arrived home!" The problem is that from the Spanish border to our home, we still have 6 hours to drive (from this year 7 🙂)! Btw, we are not living on the other side of Spain, but more in the middle, so if you would like to cross the country, you would probably need a 12-hour drive...
Why do I mention this? Well, many people ask me did you visited that Spanish city, or did you visited another town, etc. While we do like to explore different cities, if you want to visit only 1, you would probably need at least 2 days (likely more), as 1 day is already reserved only for driving (of course, if you go by car)...
Before our son enrolled at the University in Valencia, he had an idea to enroll at the University in Zaragoza, which was a valid reason for us to go there and explore the Faculty and the city itself... When we went for the first time (I think it was THIS time), we went without him (only my wife and me) as he had some other plans, but the second time, he went with us... Anyway, long story short, the trip to Zaragoza took over 5 hours including a couple of breaks! With that in mind, we reserved the hotel for 1 night, to have more time to explore this beautiful city...
These photos and memories are from November 2023... The first day, after exploring the Aljafería Palace and a great meetup with two great Hivians, @palomap3 and @ninaeatshere (I did a post about the meetup last year, but didn't publish these 2nd-day photos!), we decided to explore the biggest city park called José Antonio Labordeta...
Our hotel was very close to the park, and we had to pass by the soccer stadium La Romareda, cross the street, and there we were! The park itself is huge and while we wanted to cover it all, we didn't have enough time for talks and photo-clicking... 😃
According to Wikipedia the park has 27 ha (or 270000 square meters if you like it more like that 🙂)... It doesn't sound too much, but there are so many things to see and so many small paths to take... Botanical gardens (from which you can see photos above and under this text), sculptures and fountains (like the one 3 photos above, named Fountain of Neptune), and much more...
As it was November, but still a sunny day, we saw many people jogging through the park and it was relatively peaceful to walk around... As you can see, even the animals in the small botanic garden were sunbathing... 😎
Green grass was a very refreshing sight for us as we were coming from a very dry area where we couldn't see too much "greenery" :)
I think that most plants were labeled, so you can learn a lot about them just by walking in the park, but I still forgot what this one is called and with a little help from the Internet, I learned (again) that it is Southern magnolia... 😃
I couldn't see any water passing by, but I suppose when it rains, these small bridges are helping people to pass over... Even if not, they are so cute... This photo, and the other one above reminds me of the children's show In The Night Garden, that my son was watching when he was little... 😂
And another sculpture, this time of King Alfonso I the Battler of Aragón, established in 1925...
As the sculpture is on the top of a small hill, you have to make a 180-degree turn and take a photo of the park (almost like a bird-eye view)! It's impossible to fit the whole park into one photo, but this part is what you can see when you enter (from the opposite side, in the distance)...
I have no idea what it is called in English, but in Spanish, this is Quiosco de la música, which was made for the Spanish-Frech exhibition in 1908, which is a great example of modernist art of those times...
And we are at the place where we entered the park, which means that our walk has finished... I remember that I did more photos, but have no idea where they are... Maybe it was from our second visit to Zaragoza, so maybe they will pop out from somewhere one day... 😃 I hope you enjoyed this short walk! Not sure when will I have time to visit again Zaragoza, but if I do, I will try to take more than 2 days as I skipped so many great places and I want to revisit this place again!
PS. Not sure, but this could be my first post in the Throwback Thursday community and I missed the day... 😃 It is Friday, so I will use the #fbf tag (that I didn't know what it means and had to Google it... It's Flashback Friday)!
Thank you for your time,
--ph--
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