May holiday

May Day this year fell on Sunday, so the holiday was passed on to Monday to make a nice long weekend. Unfortunately the weather wasn't very nice most of the time and there was a cold wind which made it unpleasant to be out, so we didn't have a good outing until Monday when the wind had died down. In Somport there was bright sunshine and nice crunchy snow in the shady areas.

Although most of the ground is clear of snow everything still has a rather squashed look and the vegetation hasn't woken up for its short growing season yet in Somport. Last weekend in San Juan de la Peña was different; it's a bit lower down and spring was busting out all over.

Beech shoots

Jonquils

Pale Alpine narcissus

San Juan de la Peña

On Saturday morning we drove to the New Monastery of  San Juan de la Peña. Having seen both the old and new monasteries quite a few times, we just went for a little walk to the balcony which looks out over the descent to the village and the valley of the river Aragón Sobordán. We saw damage from the heavy snowfalls of the winter:

There were violets and hepaticas all over the place. This was the angle of a stone bench.