Hotel Husa Triskel Sos del Rey Catolica

So I don't know if you realized this but if you look at the map, Zaragoza is in the opposite direction of Portugal. In fact, its half way to Madrid and Barcelona. Well, you all must be asking yourselves "why are they going in that direction"? After driving for 4 hours we asked ourselves that very same thing! You see, to get to campsites we use the GPS coordinates that we find off of a eurocamping website. So far these coordinates have been very helpful ...

... streets and some clear and sane mind, we found a camping site to park our RV in spend a night....

I found Zaragoza very quiet town. It's got a big cathedral and a square in front of it, statue of Goya and few other nice things.

But at night it's completely different. Lots of people on the streets, bars start filling at 7 p.m. and are full until 3 a.m. So, for us it was - Party time!!!

... br>Zaragoza is ... hot - well over 30 degrees! Luckily, there is a fair bit of shade in the old town, so I tried to stay relatively cool as I made it over to the hostel. There was a bit of a wait to check in, as there was a shift change taking place. I dumped off my bag, and was off to sightsee. Zaragoza is famous for La Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Pilar, a massive edifice looking over an even more massive plaza. Unfortunately, Zaragoza didn't seem ...

... spires of various lengths with something different on top of each pillar.

The inside is incredible with extremely high ceilings, with paintings on the tops and plaster angels and cherubs all around.

The organ is huge and the choir area is wood chairs and walls with ornate carvings on the wood. The nave is incredible with so many carvings and niches to look at.

Around the corner there is ...

Boring long day on the A23, highest col 1223m.

Looking for aire in Zaragoza when Brits James, Clare and Katie in their motorhome took us under their wing to the park they'd already stayed in. Left over from 2008 water based expo, with typically spanish rusty iron "sculpture".

35 degree C until light shower cooled us all off.

Bren washed her hair in the public drinking fountain, starting a trend with the other family.

Thought it was about time we wrote a blog about our trip as many of you wont be on facebook and be able to see all the photos. So a brief overview of the last few weeks of our month in Spain and Portugal and the first couple of weeks in Morocco. We decided we would do the West Africa trip as we enjoyed Nairobi to Cape Town over Christmas/New Year. We got talking to our driver of the trip (Chris) and he was doing the trip from London to Turkey for 43 weeks so we decided to a portion ...

So here we are we finally made it to the start of the trip, well still in the despedida really (which has to be a record as we are getting almost into a month of saying goodbye, spending quality time together for the "last" time with friends and family or having conversations about how it will be like we never left with the use of all the internet treats that we now take for granted such as Skype, Facebook whatever... but lets face it, it's not) but anyways here we are in ...

We said goodbye to our wonderful host Sylvia in Guadalahara. The morning light and warmth felt like late May back home. We took to the A2/E90 heading NE towards Zaragoza. One hour later we turned off the highway to visit an old Roman fort on the top of a mountain with a spectacular view, Mendinacellini. Structures ...

... bar open and then walked towards the ruins we´d spotted in the distance. Whilst trying to take photos of an attractive ceramic sundial, an elderly gentleman approached and realising we weren´t from Belchite, wanted to know what had brought us. After hearing that we wanted to know more about the old town, he immediately stepped into the role of tour guide. Virg has tried to transcribe what he told us in her blog, I´ll provide my interpretation from Virg´s translation (if that makes ...

One of the great things about being here this week has been learning about many of the Spanish customs and culture. We had a Quiemada ceremony (http://www.expatica.com/source/site_ar ticle.asp?subchannel_id=83&story_id=184 71&name=The+weird+and+wonderful%3A+witc hcraft+in+Spain), where "the Aguardiente, a strong distillation of grape skins, coffee beans, fruit and sugar is ritually set ablaze, scooped from its bowl and poured and re-poured until columns of fire ...