Zaragoza and Lleida - Part 2

The trip to Zaragoza and Lleida was full of experiences and exciting things, so here is the second part! We left Lleida heading to Zaragoza...unfortunately the sky turned more and more dark and cloudy, so as we arrived in Zaragoza, the inevitable happened: RAIN!!! At first we thought: hey, some rain will not kill us! Moreover we were visiting that fantastic arabic palace called Aljafería! From the outside you could think it looks more like a Germanic castle but as we got inside....WOW...like you would imagine the palace of the Arabian Nights!! Great architecture with lots of squiggled pillars, which are surrounding the oasis of this palace: the garden! Rows of perfectly trimmed orange trees, hydrated by hidden waterpipelines! Such gardens were the symbol of prosperity and immortality and still are today...I must not mention that I was really impressed....as we left and started to walk to the center of Zaragoza, we noticed that "some rain" turned out to be changing into the Niagara Falls! We were forced to wait in the hallway of some houses and were joking around like: We have alcohol, we are in a dry place, lets have the party here! But all the laughing did not change a thing...it was raining and raining and raining....actually it did not stop for the rest of the night...so we just had to walk through all the water and were happy to arrive at the Basilica of Pilar. It was definitely worth it to go there because it is an impressive building! After visiting the cathedral and waiting outside in rain, we decided to not wait any longer in the cold and search for cosy place. Finally we found a Guiness and were all happy to sit there and relax. Was really funny though, because as the waiter asked us, what we would like to order, the following conversation was created:

I:              Could I have some tea, please?

Waiter:     What???? We do not have tea! Next!

Iryna:        Could I have Sangria?

Waiter (with a face of "you got to be kidding me"): WHAT? We do not have sangria! Next!

Next friend: What about cava??

Waiter (with open mouth and staring at us): What do you think were you are??????? :-)

Ok..finally we ordered beer, but hey, he made me a tea ;-) It was really funny and the Spanish guys all laughed ;-)

It was a great trip again!! Next one please :-)

Zaragoza and Lleida

Just another great trip to Spanish cities!!! Well, to get up so early sucks a little bit but hey... ;-) again I did this trip with the "Weekend Out Barcelona" group and again super satisfied! I mean: to meet nice, funny people coming from the whole world, worry-free travel, free buffet and seeing the most interesting cities? For me it is the best way to travel...ok but further...like usual, we started in Barcelona in the morning, first direction: Lleida. It is a nice, little city approximately two hours from Barcelona, which may not be so exciting and "metropolitan" but which is nevertheless an interesting city to visit, with a lot of historical backround. I really liked it! Mainly we visited the Cathedral of Lleida, which was built up on a hill and is again an impressing example of architecture! At least for fans of historical buildings like churches and cathedrals :-) We climbed all the stairs of the Tower - oh yes, we did! And as we climbed the last, we faced the fantastic view over Lleida! It was worth the sweating! After all that sport we needed something to eat of course! So the bus took us to a big restaurant with a big buffet. We all were starving, so we raided the buffet like a pride of leons ;-) It was pretty good! To be continued...