Zaragoza

As usual check the web sites www.booking.com and www.venere.com but one to be highly recommended is the Hotel San Valero, C/Manifestacion 22, a very smart boutique hotel in the old part of the city. The rooms are very well appointed and the staff very helpful, it has a café, bar and restaurant attached, free wi-fi in the rooms.

There are some fabulous tapas bars in Zaragoza, some with really unusual specialities, there are many restaurants which offer a very reasonably priced set menu del dia.

Casa Juanico, Plaza Santa Cruz 21,is a very popular bar with a wide range of excellent tapas and also serving larger plates.

La Republicana. C/Mendez Nunez 38, a lovely quirky bar and restaurant with great food and really friendly staff and offering some great vegetable dishes..

La Ria, CV/Torrenueva 35, a modern bar and restaurant which does a very reasonable menu del dia.

Taberna Dona Casta, C/Estebanes 6, is a fabulous bar, incredibly popular with a range of croquettes which are fantastic. They get freshly cooked to order and it also does a range of other tapas and raciones as well. The croquettes are so fantastic it would be a shame to try anything else at least initially.

Vinos Nicolas, is opposite Dona Casta, it is a great bar with a speciality of delicious small pastry parcels of amazing combinations, the staff are really friendly and there is an excellent wine selection..

La Cueva, C/Libetad 16, is diagonally opposite Nicolas, and opposite Dona Casta. This is a bar which only does one tapas, a skewer of grilled mushrooms with a prawn on top and enough garlic to keep away the vampires. You can have the mushrooms without the prawn.

Bodegas Almau, C/Estebanes 10, is about 3 doors down from Dona Casta and is an exceptionally smart old fashioned bar and wine shop with an excellent range of canapés. This bar wins frequent prizes at the tapas awards.

The corner on which three of the above four sit must be one of the best corners in any Spanish city for tapas and wines.

Los Vitorinos, C/Jose de Las Heras 6, is a fantastic old fashioned bar with a selection of canapés of a variety I have never seen anywhere else in Spain, it is not cheap but worth every euro. One word of warning there is one member of staff who could do with a course in customer care.

Calle Heroismo and the surrounding streets are at the end of the old part known as El Tubo, a lot of the bars specialise in cold meats, cheese and pate. Some of the recommended ones are.

Alta Taberna Pedro Saputo, C/Antonio Agustin 19, is a very smart bar and restaurant which does great tapas such a monkfish brochettes to order.

Casa Luis, C/Romea 8, is just round the corner and also does some excellent tapas, and seems popular with people having full meals

Pantagruel, C/Herosimo 35, reputed to be the best in this street for toast with meats, cheeses and pates, incredibly popular and very cheap.

Gran Café de Zaragoza, C/Alfonso 1, an institution worth visiting but seemed a bit expensive late at night.

Bar Bacarach, C/Espoz y Mina, is a very smart late night bar with a oldish crowd, fine for a nightcap.

Drink

Another city where there is an opportunity to try wines from a number of areas close by. Campo de Borja is probably closest to Zaragoza and produces some excellent red wines from mainly the garnacha grape, really loved trying these on our visit. Other areas are Carinena and Somontano producing both red and white and in the case of the latter some very good rose.

Zaragoza has one of the most important religious buildings in Spain, the Basilica de Nuestro Senora del Pilar which should definitely be visited as the building dominates the old part of the city, the square where it sits has some great buildings and monuments.

There are some excellent Roman remains including an amphitheatre and a ticket can be bought for all the sites.

Finally the Aljaferia is a Moorish palace which predates the Alhambra in Granada and is certainly worth the walk or short bus trip to visit.