Zaragoza In 4 Days (Our View Of The City) Plus How To Make Mexican Café De Olla

Well here I am again! I told you I’d be back eventually. In fact, I’m back before I thought I would be which I’m rather pleased about 😊. I have had to wipe the dust off my bluetooth keyboard (I only use it when I write a lot) but at least it still has battery left!

As you’ve probably gathered from the title of this post, we’ve recently returned home after a much needed break to Spain’s 5th biggest city. We should have visited Zaragoza just after Xmas last year but we had to cancel due to the ill health of Pep’s beloved dog Charlie. Sadly we had to have him put to sleep a few weeks ago when he took a turn for the worse. Having to say cheerio to a beloved pet is one of the saddest times in life, as I’m sure a lot of you know.

To cheer Pep up a bit we booked a 4 night’s stay in the city we had yet to visit. Although we would happily go back to Granada, Cáceres, Toledo, Salamanca, Ávila, etc, we always enjoy visiting new places. We love exploring cities, especially the historical centre. And if they have a river going through them, even better 😁.

We’d booked a modern apartment which was a 10 minute walk from the historical centre. Thankfully it included parking. It’s quite tricky to park without paying in Zaragoza, even outside of the old town.

Before I proceed, a quick mention to a fantastic blog that helped us find all sorts of great shops, restaurants, parks, landmarks, etc, etc. It’s based on all things Zaragoza, there are hundreds of posts with info on everything you could possibly wish to know (and a bit more too). Anyway, here it is zaragozaguia.com. It’s only in Spanish.

Okey dokey, on to our holiday. Once we’d unpacked and relaxed a bit after the 4 hour journey (plus stops) we were ready for a bit of sightseeing. It was only 7pm, we thought we’d have a stroll before returning to the apartment to get ready for dinner.

After walking for 5 minutes I spotted a poster for various live music acts and pointed it out to Pep. He wasn’t really interested, what had caught his attention was another poster. Tomatito, a very famous and incredibly talented flamenco guitarist that Pep had always wanted to see would be playing in Zaragoza. On closer inspection, he was playing that particular day at the Teatro Principal! No time was specified, we quickly googled it to get a bit more info. The concert started at 8pm!!!

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We checked online but there were no tickets left. Google Maps in hand, we zoomed over to the Teatro Principal. Luckily it was just a 10 minute walk away. The girl in the box-office informed us that if we wanted to sit together there were only 2 seats left. What a relief. We promptly bought them and had a stroll around the area to get our breath back.

The Teatro Principal is the most important theatre in Zaragoza. It was inaugurated on the 25th of August, 1799. It’s been reformed various times during the 19th and 20th century, the last time being on the 2nd of May, 1987 when it was completely remodelled.

I will tell you about the restaurant we dined in that night, as well as other eateries, later on. For now I want to tell you a little bit more about the city.

One of the main attractions in Zaragoza, if not the main one, is the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar. It is one of two cathedrals in the city. Yes, two, the other one being La Seo or Catedral de Salvador. La Seo is much older, it dates back to the 12th Century. There used to be quite a bit of rivalry between the two cathedrals but the Pope managed to sort it all out 😁 in the 17th Century by declaring them co-cathedrals. Now both cathedrals hold the title of Catedral de Zaragoza.

The Pilar is a baroque style church which was begun in 1681 and completed in 1686, although various different churches had been built upon this site. One of them was built and consequently destroyed by fire in the fifteenth century.

The Pilar is huge. It measures 130 metres long and 67 wide. It has 11 cupolas and 4 towers. Walking down the street towards the square where it’s situated, you can’t quite believe the immensity of it. We strolled by it numerous times on our visit, each time its size astounded me. By the way, if you’d like to read more info about both Cathedrals you can do so here. It’s in English.

Here are a few pics, taken both outside and inside. It was very tricky to capture the entirety of the Cathedral on my phone camera but I did my best. The entrance to the Cathedral is free, in case you’re wondering.

To get a good view of the Cathedral from the other side, it’s a good idea to visit the Puente de Piedra (stone bridge), another of Zaragoza’s famous landmarks. The Gothic-style structure was built in the 15th Century and is the oldest bridge over the river Ebro. It has been restored on numerous occasions due to flood damage.

You can continue walking by the river once you’ve crossed the bridge. In fact the walk is part of the GR-99, the Camino Natural del Ebro. This “gran recorrido” which runs alongside the river Ebro, begins in the community of Cantabria and passes through Castilla y León, País Vasco, Navarra, La Rioja, Aragón (where Zaragoza is) and Cataluña. It’s 1287 kilometres in length hence we only did a few hundred metres and left the rest for another day.

The first four pictures were taken from the Cathedral side of the river. This isn’t such a long walk as the one on the other side.

Aside from walking by the river we also walked miles and miles around the city. There are some fascinating parts, especially around the historic centre. Old shops and restaurants abound, they’re great fun to wander around. Here’s a few photos with info.

If you’ve read some of my previous posts you’ll know that Pep and I love finding parks in the cities we visit. Although we love the hustle and bustle we still enjoy some peace and fresh air once in a while. Zaragoza has quite a few parks, one much larger than the rest. The Parque Grande José Antonio Labordeta is the city’s oxygen supplier. It occupies 409.000 square metres and is home to thousands of species of plants, trees and flowers. It must be quite something in the spring.

Obviously we needed energy for all this walking. Thankfully, unlike our trip to Xàtiva (post here) we didn’t have one bad meal whilst we were on holiday. But two restaurants stood out above the rest. In fact we visited them both twice they were that good 😁. One is the Mexican restaurant Distrito México (website here). It’s in the old town, part of “El Tubo” (I’ll come to that in a bit).

The other restaurant we visited twice is Baobab (website here), a vegetarian restaurant close to the University of Zaragoza. This was about a 45 minute walk from our apartment but it was so worth it. It’s worth booking, especially at lunchtime. They do a menú del día which they change weekly (I think). You have the option of ordering all 3 courses, including one drink (water, juice, glass of wine or a caña) and homemade rye and wheat bread, for 17€. There is also the option to have just the main course and dessert for 13€. This also includes the bread and a drink.

One day we shared one full menu and one half a menu, the other day we just had two smaller menus. There were 3 different starters to choose from and 4 mains. There were quite a few desserts too. You can check out the weekly menú del día and also the à la carte menu on their website. The food was scrumptious and the place was bustling but not loud, which I’m always thankful for 😊.

There are quite a few veggie restaurants in Zaragoza. Uh Mami is supposedly very good but they were closed most of the time we were there (we went during the week) so we couldn’t try it out. One we did try is Restaurante La Birosta (Facebook page here), situated in the Barrio de Magdalena. They do a menu del día for 12,30€ which they change daily. It included one drink if I remember rightly. It’s a friendly little restaurant with home cooked food, most of which is vegan and gluten free (but the bread isn’t 😁).

Right, on to El Tubo. El Tubo is an area in the heart of the historic centre and it’s famous for its tapas bars. It gets super busy, especially at weekends. It’s quite normal to have your drink and tapa standing up, outside of the bar, or perched on a wobbly stool. The atmosphere is great and you can go from one bar to the next, sampling their delicacies. Often they’ll specialise in just a few different tapas. In fact one offers only one tapa, some sort of mushroom tower. We didn’t get chance to try it unfortunately, there were too many bars to choose from.

Well, I’m more or less getting to the end of our short break. But of course, our trip wouldn’t be complete without sampling a few hundred calories in the shape of a cake. Especially seeing as it was Pep’s Birthday. We Googled best “pastelerías” in Zaragoza and decided on Cafetería Justicia (Website here), a small, modern coffee shop on the edge of the old town. It was packed when we arrived, we had to queue for a few minutes to get served. Thankfully we managed to scrounge a table just as someone was leaving. I ordered the matcha frappé with oat milk accompanied by a matcha cookie filled with lemon (I obviously like green things 😂). Pep had a black coffee with a large slice of Ferrero Rocher gateau. Everything was extremely rich and scrumdiddlyumptious.

Now we’re on the subject of tempting goodies I’ll mention one more thing about this city. Zaragoza was supposedly the first city in Europe to enjoy the benefits of chocolate. I won’t go on about how this happened as it’s a long story. If you’d like to know a bit more you can read about it here. However, I will tell you about a delightful little voucher that will entitle you to sample 5 different types of chocolate delicacies from various cafeterías, chocolate shops, cake shops, etc. And all for just 9€!

You can buy the voucher named the Chocopass from the Tourist Info offices scattered throughout Zaragoza. And of course, Pep just had to buy one the morning after the day we arrived 😁. So part of our trip was spent wandering from café to shop to ice cream parlour, etc, etc, searching out the best treats to buy. Click here if you would like more info about the voucher.

Right, now that’s definitely all I have to say about our trip to Zaragoza. Undoubtably we had a great time, though we didn’t get chance to see everything we would have liked to. But we did our best 😊. Luckily the weather was fantastic. It does get a tad chilly at night though.

Whenever we go away for a few days there is always lots to do in our huerta when we come home. The season is coming to an end now though. Nevertheless there’s always something going on!

The golden delicious apple tree went a bit mad this year too and has supplied us with quite a few fruit. They are scrumptious. I’ve made some apple butter from this recipe. If you haven’t tried apple butter before I thoroughly recommend it. It sounds fattening but it isn’t, especially this recipe as it doesn’t call for sugar. The apples are sweet enough to not need it. I use it as I would jam. It’s delicious with homemade toasted almond and sesame butter on toast or a rice cake. You can also freeze it if you have a glut of apples. It would make a nice cake filling I think.

So that’s about it. But one more thing before I go 😁. There is a fabulous little Mexican restaurant in Valencia called Margarita (I spoke about it in this post). It’s excellent value for money and the food is to die for. Huge portions too, you have to be careful you don’t order too much. However, they do advise you if they think you might have gone a bit mad.

On the way back from Zaragoza we stopped in Valencia for the night. We had tickets for a concert we wanted to go to there. Margarita was our choice for dinner and we returned for lunch the next day too🤦🏻‍♀️, that’s how good it is.

Although I don’t have dessert I do enjoy their café de olla, a warming, sweet coffee that is most welcome now the weather is cooling slightly.

The first time I ever tried it was in a Mexican restaurant in Denia in the late 90’s. Sadly the restaurant is no longer there but their café de olla still remains in my memory after all these years. I like to make it at home, following the recipe as best I can. You’ll need ground coffee (in my case decaf), panela sugar, a cinnamon stick and water. You can also add a clove, star anise, a spot of lemon or orange rind, but I like to keep it simple.

These are the amounts for 2 people. Firstly add 500ml of water, 30 grams of panela sugar and half a cinnamon stick to a saucepan and heat over medium heat until the sugar melts. Bring to a boil. When it’s boiling add the coffee, stir, turn off the heat and cover. Leave for 5-10 minutes depending on how strong you like it, then strain into mugs. Easy peasy. You can add a spot of Kahlua or rum if you like. I haven’t tried it though.

It’s a lovely brew to enjoy on a chilly winter afternoon whilst you’re cuddled up in front of the fire. And if you’ve got a slice of cake to go with it, even better.

Since I have probably sent you to sleep with this super long post, I best say cheerio for now. Before I do though (here she goes again!), here are a few more crochet and macrame items I have been making. If you would like a bit more info about them (sizes, price, materials, etc,) you can send me a message through the contact us form on this blog. Alternatively you can pm me on this blog’s Facebook page. All macrame items are made with 100% recycled, eco, sustainable and biodegradable cotton cord, either from Spain or Poland.

Anyway, that is definitely it. Take care you lot. Thanks so much for reading. If you would like to contact us about anything whatsoever please feel free to do so, we’d love to hear from you. Lots of love, Georgie and Pep xxx