A very short break

Jaca is a nice place to live. During the weeks of what they called "Lockdown" in the UK it was only locals here, so it was comfortable to go to supermarkets (as infrequently as possible, of course) only one person went shopping for a household, in contrast to what I've seen recently; whole families clustered round the shopping trolley in Carrefour-mum, dad, all the children and maybe the grandparents too!

We are still not out of the pandemic-won't be until there is an effective vaccine-but it's summertime and people are having holidays. Who can blame them? It's hot and we all need a bit of a change.

We decided to stay in our area, more of less. Escalona is a tiny village just beyond Ainsa, and it's a good place to stay between two places we wanted to visit; Pineta and Plan.

Pineta is a national park. You get there by going to the tiny village of Bielsa, where you do a U turn and climb up to the route to Pineta. You and a thousand or so other cars. There's plenty of parking space. Four euros for the day.

It's worth it, even if you only spend a couple of hours, as we did. 

A short walk took us to this lovely waterfall. My goodness the water was cold!In the afternoon we took a rather long and tortuous drive to the Añísclo canyon. 

There were some amazing cliffs but we couldn't see most of them for the trees! I think you have to spend more time and climb up and down. Oh well.Our hotel was quite comfortable and the breakfast was good. (Hotel Cinca)The second day the plan was Plan. It's a village which is rather remote. It made itself famous in 1985 when depopulation was such that there weren't enough women, maybe they'd gone away to work. Anyway, following the idea of the Western film Westward the Women, there was an invitation for women to come and see if they could find their man there: "The caravan of Love". It was on national and international news! From a small ad in the newspaper: "Women between 20 and 40 wanted, for matrimony" 80 went to the village. Apparently from that 40 couples were formed, of which 17 were in Plan. We thought it was a pleasant place, but rather remote; you have to drive through various tunnels to get there.

Lovely bignonias

Medical centreWe stopped at a place called Puen Pecador on the way to Chisten. There's a little walk along an easy path which takes you over the river Zinqueta on a 17th century stone bridge-hold onto your glasses! The drop from the parapet is 50 metres! All along the path are signs giving information about the different species of trees you can see there. And I found some lovely wild pinks

Then the last village along, Chistau. Small and remote, but with some pretty features.

A disused rural school

Four of these square towersLast village, San Juan de Plan. Very steep streets!

One of those traditional knockers.We had a good, but heavy meal in Bielsa and after a rest in the hotel spent the afternoon in Ainsa, where we've been many times before. It's an amazing place, but I have to say the crossroad in the lower town is awful for the amount of traffic. Chaos.

 

Mountains

My last post was in March, just before the government declared the State of Alarm. Nobody could really imagine what was to come. We came to Jaca for the weekend in mid-March, and nearly the end of May we haven't been able to return to Zaragoza. We are very glad to have been able to stay in our home here; we have more space and plenty to keep us busy, a little garden to sit in and far fewer people than there are here usually.
Until last week when we made some hospital trips to Huesca, we hadn't left Jaca at all, but now the quarantine has been eased a little, we took ourselves to Formigal in the Tena valley to see daffodils. Too late! They had finished; but what we saw instead was wonderful!

Not our dog!

orchids

lots of asphodels

viola cornuta, horned pansy

The asphodel is opening.

The Midi d'Ossau, just over the (closed) border in France.

Tractors and sunset

Here in Zaragoza, and in spain as a whole we are living the crisis provoked by the coronavirus, the covid 19. I've had one set of classes cancelled for 15 days and we really don't know how things will go. Are we going to need house arrest like they have in Italy? Will they cancel classes here like they have in Madrid? Who knows?
meanwhile, there has been a massive demonstration of tractors in Zaragoza, to protest against the low prices they receive for their produce-does the rest go to the retailers? The farmers say they don't get it.

Zaragoza was gridlocked. The big streets were packed with tractors. When I saw them at 13.45 they were all empty. By 16.00 they had gone. 

After the bitter cold and snow in Jaca last weekend it was nice to enjoy the comparative warmth in the Zaragoza evening.

Zaragoza Central Market

Last month, Zaragoza's great central market was re-opened after a big restoration project. It was stripped back to its metal framework, cleaned and redome on the inside in the style of the lovely, much bigger one in Valencia.
We finally got round to visiting it yesterday evening.

It's a long building, originally opened in 1903.

Until they started the restoration I'd never noticed the charming thematic tiles.

There are butchers, fishmongers and greengrocers, as well as four central bars with food and drink.

San Valero

San Valero, 29th January is a holiday in the city of Zaragoza. Valero was a Christian bishop in the end of the third, beginning of the fourth century.
This year it's a Wednesday so it breaks the working week in half.
In the Plaza del Pilar, they give out free "roscón de San Valero circular spongy cakes. It was also a museum day and we went to the Roman theatre. It was "discovered" in 1972, when they were excavating the area. Trere's not really much left, but like all the Roman sites in Zaragoza it's really well displayed.

You can see it from the street, and it's protected from the weather by a roof. 

In the town hall entrance, we found more "giants and bigheads" than I've ever seen. They are hollow and a person goes under the skirts to make them live-I think the head of the person would reach about waist height. 

Valencia

Last week there was a great storm called Gloria which came from the south, destroyed beaches and promenades in Valencia and tore over the mountains to Zaragoza. the weather was horrible here at the beginning of the week and in the countryside just out of Zaragoza towards Teruel it snowed. Villages in Teruel were isolated by the snow. On Friday we set out from Zaragoza to Valencia, on a motorway with snow piled up on the sides and white fields as far as the eye could see in some places.
teruel was clear, and of course there was nothing in Valencia. It was a pleasure to be able to sit outside in the winter sun there!

And of course enjoy the orange trees

The paella Valenciana

We went to the Cathedral, our first visit. This is the chapel of the Holy Grail-you can see it in the middle. It was sent there from Aragón in the middle ages.

In the museum there were lots of things, the one which really struck me was this unrepentant thief, which must have been one of three crosses.

Then we paid another €2 and went up the tower, which is known as the Micalet after the biggest of its bells. 207 steep steps up a narrow winding staircase; there were red and green lights top and bottom to restrict the traffic to one direction at a time, although it wasn't completely effective. It was a hard climb, but the view at the top was great, and the clock struck twelve while we were there; the Micalet was struck twelve loud times! 

Saving the planet little by little

A grandiose title for a small thing.
I have to say that I've always been a recycler; I've always tried to put things in the correct containers and re-use plastic bags and so on. Yes, I do use plastic bags-as little as possible, but I still use them.
Earlier this year I noticed some items on sale in Amazon: little cloth bags with zips to put fruit and vegetables in when you're shopping to avoid using plastic bags. I was tempted, but looked instead in my fabric stash and found a couple of net-curtain remnants, which I cut and sewed into dolly bags.

I felt a bit self-conscious the first times I used them, but the response from cashiers and greengrocers has been really positive!