Sunday 29 September 2013

Final day in London and on to Zaragoza, Spain

Monday  23/9 - in London
Our last full day with my London family. Emma had the day off YAY, after a late start to the day we wandered our way to The Docklands Museum and what a great place to visit. It is one of the best museums I have been to, not that I'm an expert on such places. It is very comprehensive and interesting. I got only half way through and was feeling rather 'museumed out' and Emma and Barry had had enough so we called it a day at Docklands and made our way back to the city  to meet Sam at his work. I will certainly return to Docklands to see the rest of it one day. For anyone going there I would suggest going in two stages IT'S FREE!!!! I didn't take any photos here, I wouldn't have done anything justice and, sometimes it's good for me to just leave the camera at home.

After Sam finished work we called into a nearby pub for a beer and some time together, just the 4 of us and it was great. Chatted and laughed and then a conversation with an old local looking for 'friends'. Then it was on to the tube and back to lovely Brixton to the Craft Beer Bar, which has about 50 beers to try and buy, and  to meet some other lovely people, namely Holly and Brit and finished a fantastic day off with a Japanese dinner. It's one of the great things about Brixton - all the different eating places and bars to go to, not to mention that living there are some of my most favourite people in the world. 

The next morning, Tuesday it was time to organise our bags re weight allowances, say goodbye and head off to Stansted Airport for our flight to Zaragoza, Spain. We had decided that we would take a taxi and had one of the most interesting taxi rides so far. When we booked the taxi we were told that 1 hour 15minutes would be plenty of time to allow - NO NO NO - it is not plenty of time at all! Almost 2 hours was more like it and that was in a taxi screaming along at 95 MILES PER HOUR sometimes. I had a silent mantra going on - "we will make it and we will be in time". We did make it safely to the airport, "whew",  rushed in as fast as we could, a little hampered by our luggage, got checked in ok, slow through security (toothpaste in Barry's bag, my shoes had to go through again SEPARATELY!) all taking up time, got through to find the 'final call' sign flashing on the board. So off we 'ran' again through what seemed like miles of corridorsto get onto the plane and YES we did make it, with no time to spare at all! We were a little ( to say the least) frazzled.

However, soon we were flying over the English countryside, the English Channel and then the French countryside, the Pyrenees, the very dry and extraordinary landscape north of Zaragoza and finally touched down, on time, in Zaragoza. We were through security in no time at all and taxied into the city. A very orderly ride. I was pleased to find that the driver understood my Spanish and we got to the right place - The Hotel Paris in the center of the city. 

Our room had a big balcony, rather like a 'party deck' and had such a view - I just have to show some photos -




We really liked looking down on the higgedly piccaldy rooves with the different coloured tiles and the fabulous Basilica dell Pilar.
The school that I spent most of my working time in  when I was in Zaragoza is the building halfway up the left edge of the photo - one of the nicest places I have worked in. 
For anyone who is looking for a hotel in Zaragoza I think that the Hotel Paris is great and the staff are wonderful.
How lovely it was to be back in Zaragoza, everything felt so familiar.

No comments:

Post a Comment