Zaragoza is the capital of the region of Aragon and the fifth
most populous city in Spain . Situated is a dry flat desert like region of the
Ebro Valley, it’s not a city that ranks high on most foreign tourist’s Iberian itineraries.
2008 is somewhat different, though, because of a World Expo in the city that
seemed to make it well worth a visit while I was in northeastern Spain after I
had decided not to trek through the rest of the Pyrenees.

Aragon is a large region that spreads south from the
Pyrenees in northeastern Spain and is historically important as one of the
founding kingdoms of a unified Spain when Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of
Castile united their kingdoms (and then bankrolled Christopher Columbus’s
voyages, among other things). The city’s history is older, though, and dates
back to Roman times with numerous monuments and namesakes to Roman emperor Caesar
Augustus, making it one of the older big cities in Espana.

I spent two nights in Zaragoza with a good part of one day
exploring the city center and much of another at Expo 2008. Zaragoza’s city center
is reasonably pleasant with a few notable churches and other historic buildings
but not really much to warrant making it a destination in normal years when
there are so many more interesting cities in Spain.