Life in Jaca, in the Spanish Pyrenees. Nature, including the amazing birds, sport, culture, books, history......
The most important building in Cordoba is the mosque-cathedral. The highlight of our trip to Cordoba was the opportunity to sing in the mass on Sunday. In the Andalusian heat; even in October it was sandals and shorts weather, we had to wear our uniforms.
As we were outside the closed outer door waiting to be let in, we saw a bridal couple having romantic photos taken, so we sang them a romantic song; luckily they were pleased!
We spent a week in Zaragoza, and on one of our walks we found the door of the church of El Portillo open.- we hadn't been in it before, so we went in. There were a couple of ladies there and one of them took us to see the heroines. At the beginning of the 19th century there were two terrible sieges where the people of Zaragoza resisted Napoleon's troops. Many of the streets are named after the heroes and heroines who are still remembered.
It turned out that several of them were buried in the church, honoured and commemorated there.
This statue is one of the heroines, Agustina Zaragoza
The bones of the three women are in the casks. You can see that there is a wreath which has been laid recently.In the afternoon I went to the Alcazares Reales. Free entry for senior citizens.
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| Nice gardens |
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| The 3rd century Roman mosaics were spectacular |
| Spectacular palaces and lovely gardens |
I sing with the Orfeón Jacetano. We've just come back from a trip to Cordoba, Andalucía. Google Maps say it's 844 km away from here. Taking a coach to Huesca we got on the high speed Ave train there. It took us all the way, with various stops, to Cordoba.
While in Jaca the weather is autumnal, in Cordoba I wore shorts and sandals all the time, the temperature in the 30s.
The hotel was in the old quarter, very close to the Mosque; we were told to get a bus which would take us close: it didn't. So some of us grabbed taxis and covered the rest of the distance in them. Our taxi squeezed through very narrow streets; ones you wouldn't think a car could get through-made me hold my breath!
We had to leave our suitcases in a store-room and go to the restaurant where we were booked to eat. It was a nice meal, although the meat was a little tough, the rest was delicious.
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| The seats in the train are quite tightly-packed-you can't help playing footsie with the person opposite you. |
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| Hotel los Omeyas, rooms around a central courtyard where we ate breakfast. After dinner we were allocated our rooms and had time to do some exploring. |
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| The Roman bridge tempted me |
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| Patio of the orange trees |
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| It's difficult to see without people, but you can if you get up early enough. My morning project was the Botanical Gardens. |
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| Poor man's coffee |
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| Devil's chickpeas |
A prehistoric plant
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| Pomegranate hedge |
There's more to come.
