Zaragoza sights

Zaragoza is a large and busy city, with traffic everywhere, but there are some worthwhile sights.

Ornamental blossom in March

Regeneration: tree stumps sprouting round the edges.

The wonderful pomegranate tree.

Tulipa silvestris

We went on a walk to the top of Monte Oroel yesterday. It's a bit of a climb; you go up a zig-zagging path through the trees for an hour, and then walk on top of the ridge for another half-three quarters of an hour. The views along the ridge are amazing! For me, the best thing was the wild flowers. Lovely gentians, and best of all, something I've never seen before: wild tulips! They are a lot smaller than the cultivated ones, all red and yellow and not very many of them. I couldn't find them in any of my flower books, but they are in various websites online.

Just a couple of photos of the group:

At the top we are at 1,769m above sea level.

The pathway to the top is like a motorway in that it's really busy with people going up and down. Speeds vary enormously, some people jogging there and back, others going in stops and starts. 

Serrablo

I got a request the other day to take a group on a guided tour of some of the churches of the Serrablo. These are little thousand-year-old chapels in tiny or in some cases non-existent villages in the hills near Sabiñánigo. We drove there to have a look; although we'd visited two of the three before, it's one thing to wander around on your own and quite another to take a group there. Being the second of May, the countryside was at its absolute best.

Larrede. The tower on the hill is a 16th century watchtower

at San Juan de Busa, a carpet of scillas

A host of golden daffodils

After a lovely dinner with friends in Sabiñánigo, we drove up the Tena valley to the border, Le Portalet. There are car parks for skiers next to the road, rather a chewed-up landscape after the snow which covered pretty well everything from November until last month has melted. At the moment there's a strong, chill wind. Up in the mountain pass it was bitterly cold and windy, with dirty snow still piled higher than the cars. Le Portalet has half a dozen bar-restaurants and the same number of border shops; warehouse-like stores full of massive bottles of liquor, chorizos, sweets, turron and cheese. After having a cup of lemon tea and buying Spanish turron and French cheese we drove back down into Spain to find the daffodils we'd spotted from the car. It was a bit tricky but we got there.

maybe Pyrenean ranunculus

orchid?

Pink orchid?