Where to Stay in Zaragoza, Aragon

What is Zaragoza known for?

The Basilica del Pilar is the building that carries the city's name abroad, raised to venerate the apparition of the Virgin Mary to Saint James and long a marker of identity for Christian Spain. Goya is the other name. The Goya Museum - Ibercaja Collection - Camón Aznar Museum and the Goya memorial keep the painter in view, while the Pablo Gargallo Museum and the Saragossa Museum widen the account of Aragonese art.

The 2008 Expo left a modern quarter that has been put to further use since.

What are the main landmarks in Zaragoza?

The Aljafería heads the secular monuments, and the Torre del Trovador stands with it. Roman Caesaraugusta survives in fragments. The Museo del Foro de Caesaraugusta, the Museum of the Public Baths of Caesaraugusta and the Museum of the River Port of Caesaraugusta each preserve one piece of the colony below the modern street level.

Churches run from the Church of St. Mary Magdalene and the Church of las Fecetas to the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, while the Tapestry museum of the Cathedral of El Salvador in Zaragoza holds the textiles of the chapter.

What is the history of Zaragoza?

Caesaraugusta came first. The Roman colony on the Ebro gave the city its name, and its forum, public baths and river port are each preserved as a museum under the streets that replaced them. Later building on the same ground includes the Aljafería and the Torre del Trovador, secular work that outlasted the ownership behind it.

The Basilica del Pilar followed. It was raised to venerate the apparition of the Virgin Mary to Saint James, and its standing reached far beyond Aragon. Agustina de Aragón has her own memorial in the city, a reminder that Zaragoza was fought over as well as built.

Goya belongs to the same account. The name of the painter is attached to a museum and a memorial here, and the Saragossa Museum and the Pablo Gargallo Museum extend the record of Aragonese art past him in both directions. Civic building came later.

The Palacio de los condes de Sástago, the Casa de Miguel Donlope, Solans House and the Paseo de Sagasta trace the passage from older palace to later boulevard, and the 2008 Expo added a new quarter beside the Ebro to that sequence.

Where is Zaragoza?

The Ebro runs through the city, joined here by the Huerva and the Gállego. Zaragoza lies roughly in the centre of both Aragon and the Ebro basin, which is why the roads of the region converge on it rather than skirting it. Basin country surrounds it.

River and basin together explain the position, and the quarter left by the 2008 Expo extends the frontage of the city along the Ebro.

What is the climate of Zaragoza?

The Ebro basin governs the weather more than any coast does. An inland position well away from the sea brings hot summers and cold winters, and the river does little to soften either extreme. Spring and autumn are the easier halves.

Anyone walking the Paseo de Sagasta or the Ebro front in July will find that the middle of the day is better spent inside the Aljafería or the Saragossa Museum.

How do you get to Zaragoza?

Roads converge on the middle of the Ebro basin. Zaragoza sits near the centre of Aragon, so arrivals from any direction pass along the same corridor of the valley, and the place has drawn traffic since the Roman river port at Caesaraugusta worked the water. The Expo quarter of 2008 sits by the river.

Stadium Casablanca and the Zaragoza amusement park lie away from the historic streets, on the side reached most easily by car.