Tapas
Gail and I love to go on a food tour on the first day we’re in a new city. There is so much you can learn about a city through its food. Ken and Cathy had never been on a food tour until yesterday (5/24). I think they’re converts now.
Marta was not supposed to be our guide, but Jorge’s second son was born, so Marta led the tour. She was very nice, and extremely knowledgeable about the history of Zaragoza. It started out as an Iberian settlement, but was conquered by the Romans a couple of decades before Christ. They gave it the name Caesaraugusta. There’s a statue of the emporer across from the Mercada Central in Zaragoza. It was there that we met Marta and a Canadian couple who were also on the tour.
We walked through the market .
and went on to our first stop for topas, Montal
As you can see, it’s been around for over 100 years. This was the most elaborate place we went to on our tour.
Now, if I had been smart, since this was a tapas tour, I would have taken pictures of the food. But since I usually rely on Gail for photos, I didn’t think about that. Nor did I think about recording the name of the places we visited. But I do remember the tapas we had:
- articoke and cheese pastry (from Montal)
- a stack of mushrooms with a small shrimp inside
- 3 different kind of anchovy tapas with corn breaded calamari
- lamb tapas
The other 3 tapas (not from Montal) were from little hole in the wall places from a network of narrow streets called El Tubo. Somehow, Marta always found us space for the 6 of us to sit.
The best of these was one of the anchovy tapas: anchovy, cream cheese, jam and chocolate
El Tubo had filled up with revelers by the time we finished our last tapas. Everyone in the streets was singing and dancing. The best way to get through was to dance as well. Marta led us back to the statue of Ceasar Augusto.
On our way back, we saw an interesting church: iglesia de Santa Isabel de Portugal.
Saint Isabel performed many good works for the poor, frequently distributing bread from her husband’s silos to the hungry. The story goes that one day, when Isabel was carrying bread in her apron, her husband confronted her. She opened her apron and roses poured out. We parted ways wth Marta, and went back to our Airbnb to rest.
Later, we walked around and saw the Catedral metropolitana de San Salvador
A little further on, we walked on the stone bridge to get another view of the River Ebro
The sunset that night was nice, but not as spectacular as the day before.
A view of the street
Picture from 5/24. The crane was dismantled on 5/25.
Where’s the crane? Picture at end of day 5/25.
