It took me as long to start this post as it did to get to Zaragoza. Several hours of driving on the highway, with one short coffee stop. Well, I don't have any coffee now while looking at the screen and the empty draft.

...

More hours have passed and maybe I can detect the problem - I should not look at the empty space. The solution is to look at the photos that are already here, that were taken at the moment when this nice experience was lived. My husband already talked about our mini Spanish Hive meetup that happened in Zaragoza last week (click to this link in case you want to see this day through his eyes), but I must say now, he forgot to mention one little guy who also accompanied us! Yes, yes, you already know who I am talking about.

Prince Hefromund XVI also travelled with us and in one moment, when we were still close to our home, he jumped out of my bag to actively participate in the trip.

He observed these new, unknown landscapes. There were no sharp mountain peaks even though we were at a high altitude, about 1000 metres above sea level. The clouds in the sky were the only entertainment, as the road was quite tedious. I don't blame him that he went back to his shelter to sleep when we were around Teruel.

Four and a half hours of driving and there were more and more signs of the city we were heading towards. I set the navigation to the hotel where we booked and the battle with the traffic lights started. Do you know how many traffic lights there are in Zaragoza?

I don't know, and neither the inhabitants of this city know that. They just say - a lot. 🤷‍♀

Battles with buses also took place on several occasions. Finally, we arrived at the hotel, and here I have to mention again @jesuslnrs (sorry for the tag, but you will understand now why). According to our source of information (a Hiver whom we met there in person), many years ago Shakira stayed at the same hotel as we did.

She had an important thing - a concert.

We also had an important thing! A mini Hive meetup 😃

Just a short time to rest and we were ready to start our adventure in the heart of Aragón. @palomap3 was also ready - not even five minutes passed from the message where I told her that we could meet at the entrance of our hotel and Paloma flew in with a huge smile on her face. I think her first words were: What eyes you have! 😌

She probably didn't imagine how many hours she would be our tourist guide that day. It was a good physical exercise for all of us but more importantly, it was a heartwarming experience to meet. One of my wishes was to visit The Aljafería Palace, and there we were, in the blink of an eye.

The visit took a bit more than that as we loved being inside, enjoying all the halls and... wait, no spoilers here!

Let's move on to the next place we stopped. It even became dark until we finished our visit to the palace and continued the sightseeing. So, we were standing in front of a church - La iglesia parroquial de Nuestra Señora del Portillo. Our super helpful tourist guide explained to us that there were some brave women who fought in the Spanish War of Independence, two centuries ago, whose remains lie in this church. Of course, she told us much more about the whole situation that happened to the city (more history here) and those women who fought.

This is a monument to their honour in the little square, and in the background, we see one of the bell towers of the church. It was a challenge to take a photo of this monument as there were children playing around... I could not wait longer, so those little scooters were also immortalized for Hive! 😂

I forgot what this building was... but I am sure that I wanted to take a photo of the yellow traffic light. They were an attraction for me because the majority of the traffic lights in my town were replaced by roundabouts.

Another little church, this time I don't remember the name of it, or maybe our guide, Paloma, didn't mention it at all. There were a lot of things that I learned about the city and its most important places and one can't remember all of them.

At this point, we were slowly arriving at the city centre. The Christmas lights that had been prepared for the upcoming season guided us toward the dome of the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar. A huge cathedral that for me was impossible to squeeze into one photo.

This is one attempt, from one side. Here we met another Hiver, @ninaeatshere. Nina, la niña de la selva. She is a character, a girl who would never let herself be lost, always attentive and although she was the youngest among us, we trusted her suggestions completely. If it is where to walk or where to eat.

For example, the walks with her took us a bit further from the cathedral and then I could make another attempt to place it into a frame. But then I captured the city hall too.

The two statues at the entrance of the city hall became the topic of a debate among us, four Hivers. Which saint and angel are there? San Valero, there were no doubts, was on one side. The name of the angel, the angel of the city will stay the matter of our free interpretation.

In talks and chitchatting we arrived at the old stone bridge that crosses the Ebro river. The views from there are gorgeous and more than a dozen groups of people were there taking photos. If I remember well, we didn't take a group photo of us...at least I don't have such one. Maybe we are just shy Hive people.

And also, the cathedral is more photogenic. Nina took us to a place where the bridge can be seen too, the one we crossed. She definitely knows how to find cool places in this city.

Another idea was to go down to the river bank. However, there were two fishermen who warned us not to go down. They said there were rats! Nina didn't believe them and responded to those two guys that it was a nice attempt to scare us away 🤣

Well, they showed us a video recording of a rat, eating the food they had as bait for fish. The desire to go down and take a cool photo with the reflection of the cathedral in the river immediately disappeared {lol}. Therefore, there is just a photo of a part of the nicest building on the other side of the river.

Too much walking, right? Where is the dinner??

For that, we had to go back to the city centre and the famous "El Tubo" of Zaragoza. So many little bars and restaurants were all around. How could we choose one to have dinner, the best one?

No more questions here. We had Nina!!

La casa de las migas was the chosen one, and it was fantastic! Maybe it seems too simple, but that was the trick, to get something traditional, authentic. The cuisine was exquisite and the service too.

We ordered several dishes...

The first one that arrived was goat cheese with quince jelly:

Then Migas with chorizo (I think there is no better translation to English), spicy potatoes and madejas (again, no translation on my part):

In this photo above we see the arms of @palomap3 and @ninaeatshere, ready to share the tasty dinner.

If these were not already enough, the dishes were still arriving. Rabo de toro (ox tail):

The next one was pollo en algo 😂

I really don't remember that name. You know, almost all of these were traditional dishes from Aragón that I have tried for the first time here. I am waiting for our hostesses to write the name of this dish, please. It was very tasty, by the way. Everything was so delicious, to be honest!

In one moment Prince Hefromund joined the dinner (no photo proof, sorry... I was explaining his history and how he got from Poland to Spain. Now those two Hiver ladies think I am crazy or similar 😜).

Time passed so quickly.

The next stop was a pastry shop or ice cream shop, but almost everything was closed already.

In the search for sweets we found just closed pastry shops:

A little shopping centre - food corner was also sleeping at those hours. The giant statue {edited 😅} Cesar Augusto had his eyes closed too.

The statue of the horse was still there, he never sleeps. He receives curious people to make him company (oh no, I didn't ride it, as I know my husband would have no mercy and publish that photo 😂)

The afternoon and the evening were indeed really nice! It is difficult to put into words and post all that we did and talked about. Maybe that is one of the reasons I just needed time to put this together, and still, I miss many things to mention. We also visited a little exposition that evening... and the whole next day remains pending to share with you - the visits to a park, the churches and lunch with Paloma. The gifts we received from these Hive ladies.

But the best gift was the meeting, and despite the cold (no surprise, it is autumn, as the scores of Vivaldi's piece also confirm) we had a great time!

Conclusion?

I don't like farewells or conclusions... but if you are a Hive user and have some opportunities to meet others from our blockchain - don't hesitate to do it.

If you don't have an opportunity - create it by yourself! ✨