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Zaragoza

My first stop (after flying into Madrid) was Zaragoza, Spain, where I spent the week. I attended a conference as well as did a little exploring on food. The weather in mid-March was warm-ish in the days but cool-ish in the evenings and mornings—call it a low of 10°C/50°F and a high of 25°C/77°F.

My hotel was near the Plaza España, near the city centre/old town area which is where the Pillar Bascilica is which is the center of everything. The Ebro River runs east/west, and our conference was at the University of Zaragoa's engineering campus which was on the north side of the river, so I took the tram to get there and back daily.

It was also the week before Easter, and people go a bit Easter crazy. I don't have photos of that here (yet).

Note (July 21, 2024): Cellphone photos haven't been incorporated into the collection yet. I figured there's no reason to delay publishing these.

(Jump right to the pictures and skip all the blah-blah-blah.)

Photography note:
For some of the panoramic/composite images that I used Photoshop to "stitch" together, I also used the Photoshop "warp" feature to fix the distortions caused by me not using (having) a tripod (with the right mount) when I took the picture. This feature was new to me, but has probably been in Photoshop for 15-20 years. By unwarping the image, it looks more like what I saw when I took the picture, as opposed to just cropping the images, sometimes losing parts of the picture I wanted. On occasion, I'd leave it as a mosaic of images that look like some sort of photo ransom note. I try not to do too much digital manipulation, but I've removed lens spots in blue skies or grey clouds too in the past.

I also changed up the thumbnail image gallery CGI code to accomodate all of these "panoramic" shots. The old code put them on their own line since it was typically a very wide picture. Many of these pictures are only slightly larger than the normal version, so I changed the code to scale all thumbnail images to fit in the landscape or portrait shape depending on whether it's tall or wide.

Also, I took some pictures using a test smartphone. It was lightweight which was a plus, but a pain in the ass in ever other way. And the images it produces are highly altered and adjusted that do not really reflect reality. For simplicity's sake, I decided I'll upload all of my Nikon DSLR pictures first, and then add the phone ones (when I have time).

¬Frank (April 28, 2024).


2024 Spain Pictures
Part 1: Zaragoza (54 pictures)
Part 2: Aljaferia (46 pictures)
Part 3: Northern Spain Expedition (69 pictures)

Part 4: Granada / Alhambra (58 pictures)
Part 5: Madrid (70 pictures)



Displaying all 54 pictures


View from my Hotel at Night

My hotel had a balcony and I took a few pictures from there.

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Iglesia Parroquial de San Gil Abad

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Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar (Catedral-Basílica de Nuestra...(more)

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Cathedral of the Savior of Zaragoza (Catedral del Salvador)

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Looking down 7 floors to the street below at night.


Walking by the Ebro River

The day after I arrived in Zaragoza, I walked into the old town City Centre area, north to the Ebro River, crossed the river, and then walked along the north shore, and eventually came back. It was a pleasant day, though a bit of a gray sky.

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Cathedral of the Savior of Zaragoza (Catedral del Salvador), a church...(more)

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Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar (Basílica de Nuestra Señora del...(more)

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The River Ebro looking east to the Puente de Hierro (Iron Bridge) from the...(more)

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Looking to the north side of the river from the Puente de Piedra (Foot Bridge).

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A Spanish bird! (Other bird pictures are elsewhere in this trip.)

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Looknig north on a lookout point on the Puente de Piedra across the Ebro River.

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The Pilar Basilica from the Ebro River (Puenta de Piedra).

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The lookout points from the Puenda De Piedra on the Ebro.

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The backs of bronze lions on the north side of the bridge.

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Bronze lions also guard the south side of the bridge.

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Every now and then one of the fountains would spray up water for a few seconds.

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Footbridge across the Ebro River with the Basilica behind it.

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A panorami shot of the footbridge across the Ebro River with the two Churches...(more)

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Another view of the Basilica and the footbridge.

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A view of the Footbridge from the north side of the Ebro looking west.

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The same subjects from a slightly different, lower perspective.

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In retrospect, all in all, it really was just bricks in the wall...

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Piegeons making their homes in gaps in the wall.

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A view of the Basilica from the Puente de Santiago (St. James Bridge).

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Helios is a sports club/gym place just west of the Puente de Santiago.

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Looking west from the Puente de Santiago on the Ebro.

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Church of San Juan de los Panetes (ignore the file name, it's by the Cesar...(more)

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The Central Market to the right, and restaurants to the left. In the center of...(more)

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The Samaritan Fountain on the Plaza del Justicia.

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Fuente de la Samaritana (Samaritan Fountain) on the Plaza del Justicia, facing...(more)


Zaragoza Streets

I spent most of my time near the old town city centre. Like most of the older areas I saw in Spain, it has a look that combines older European cities and what I imagine to be a sort of arabian layout that I've seen in adventure or thriller movies from the 20th Century. And by that I mean, all the buildings are of a similar, almost uniiform height of 4 or 5 stories, narrow streets, and not a single fucking one of them is straight! Every street is shaped like a J or an S or possibly some cursive script form that's even more twisty. Sometimes intersections have 4 streets, sometimes more, sometimes less. The main point is that there's no view of the horizon, and the only thing you know is that if you enter a street going in a certain direction, you won't be going in that direction at the other end of it.

Another thing that I'm guessing is common in Europe is that street names only apply for a a few blocks. Then the street changes its name. On the plus side, given just a street address, you could generally get within +/1 a block of your destination. The downside is that unless you have a detailed map of the city, odds are that any given street name is mostly useless because you'll never find it on a map. So a GPS map, planning ahead, or having a detailed street map is often needed. I usually used the latter approach because I know I look like a lost tourist anyway.

I walked around the area around the hotel, which was near the Plaza España. If I was wandering around the old town area, say, looking for a place to get dinner, often I'd see a place or two that would be a candidate, and then when I decided what was the best option, I'd have diffiulty finding it again unless it was on one of the main streets (which are probably more modern, have different sized buildings alongside them, and contrary to what I said above are straight) or I wandered around for 15 minues and passed it again. If this were an adventure game, I would constantly be forgetting to save my progress as I went.

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We happened to join up with the rest of the DFRWS people at the end of their...(more)

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♪♪ Spider ant, spider ant, Never say to them don't or can't, Can they...(more)

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A cute, oddball mural on a wall (he is getting a bit cocky).

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Palacio de los Condes de Sástago (The Palace of the Counts of Sástago) was...(more)

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Frank looking at the ceiling, thinking of taking a picture.

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Ceiling of the Palacio de Sástago.

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Stain-glass window with the Spanish Coat of Arms at Palacio de Sástago.

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Hotel Aragon with striking Yellow tarps retracted. (See the night shot TBD.)

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Frank shows off a big Spanish door that has normal-sized mini-doors built in...(more)

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A hand-door knocker. Neat!

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A cool doorway—the silhouetted person walked by right as I took the picture. ...(more)

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A very woody looking plant seed store. I just poked my head in for the picture.

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Frank showing off another Spanish door—this time, more glassy than spiky.

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Frank and Daryl taking pictures of their reflection by the central market,...(more)

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World Ball (Bola Del Mundo) sculpture on the Plaza De Pillar.

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Daryl and Frank by the Pilar Basilica (and World Ball).

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Niños con Peces sculpture with Daryl and the Cathedral of the Savior behind it.

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Now that's a big door!

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They have lots of big doors in Spain. Bit pointy doors.

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Just to the right of the belltower are snowcapped mountains.

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Snowcapped mountas are immediately to the left of the belltower.



And finally, every day for a week, I'd pass by a street a block away from the hotel and the same question/Simpsons quote would go through my mind. I knew I had to do my own take on it. So the last night I was in town, on the way back to the hotel after dinner, I recorded this. And for the record, it was named after some dude (whose name means pee-pee...OK, it's spelled with 1 r, but I can't roll r's so it'd all sound the same coming out of my gringo mouth).


2024 Spain Pictures
Part 1: Zaragoza (54 pictures)
Part 2: Aljaferia (46 pictures)
Part 3: Northern Spain Expedition (69 pictures)

Part 4: Granada / Alhambra (58 pictures)
Part 5: Madrid (70 pictures)




This page last modified Jul 25, 2024.
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