Inside the explosion of domes and spires that is the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, worshippers stoop one at a time by an inner wall, peer through an opening, then solemnly kiss the back of a column topped with a statue dressed in a woman's robe. The site has been holy since 40 AD, when, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary made a full-body appearance on the jasper column to encourage St. James (Santiago in Spanish) in his missionary endeavours. Locals still come regularly to light a candle or purchase a piece of consecrated ribbon to bring good luck to their home, their car or a sick friend.
"Many people these days aren't religious," tour guide Benoit Van Kesteren says, "but because they live here, they believe in the Virgin."
The Virgin has indeed been good to Zaragoza. The city's coffers get a boost each October when nearly a million pilgrims flood in for the week-long Festival of the Pillar. Sightseeing tourists, however, generally bypass the state of Aragon and its capital, opting instead for the beaches of southern Spain and the art and architecture of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Granada. This year, Zaragoza hopes to change all that by employing hospitality expertise acquired through the pilgrim trade to host a much more secular event, an international exposition.
If you plan to visit Expo 2008 (June 14-Sept. 14), allow time to explore Aragon in depth. This is a land where Christianity, Islam and Judaism have co-existed and collided over the centuries. History's cauldron of passion, prejudice and persecution has bequeathed a wealth of historic and architectural treasures for today's visitors. Must-sees in this former kingdom in northeastern Spain include Zaragoza's two cathedrals, Teruel's four towers built in the region's unique Mudejar style, the war-ravaged ruins of Belchite, the walled hill town of Albarracin and the rock-hewn San Juan monastery.
Just don't expect to see a lot of sites connected with Catherine of Aragon. She is famous in the English-speaking world because Henry VIII split with the Catholic Church in order to divorce her (as fans of The Tudors will remember). But in Aragon, the real celebrities are Catherine's parents, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, along with painter Francisco Goya, who was born and educated in the region.
Zaragoza, located roughly halfway between Madrid and Barcelona, is a bustling, modern city with a wide commercial avenue, the Paseo Independencia. The city boasts a theatre and other monuments from the days when its Roman founders called it Caesaraugusta. But the main focus of tourist interest is the grand square that links the city's two cathedrals, the Basilica of the Pillar and La Seo.
Construction of the massive Baroque basilica began in 1681 on the site of earlier churches and shrines to the Virgin. Two bombs, on display inside, struck the building during the Spanish Civil War but never exploded. The faithful call it a miracle.
La Seo, also known as San Salvador Cathedral, reflects Aragon's rocky history of inter-religious relations. This Christian place of worship on the site of a former mosque was built by Muslim workmen after the Christian reconquest of northern Spain. The construction came during the few golden decades when, as tour guides like to boast, Christians, Jews and Muslims lived in peace and harmony.
Those same guides, however, are often less forthcoming when it comes to the horrors of the Inquisition and the forced conversions of non-Christians that followed. Some guides mention, in passing, that the Jews were "invited to leave" in 1492 and the Muslims were eventually given the same invitation.
Regardless of how the story is told, La Seo is a prime example of Mudejar architecture, a warm, decorative style that reflects Islamic traditions and is unique to Aragon. UNESCO recognizes the region's many Mudejar monuments as a World Heritage Site.
Christian-Jewish relations are also reflected in La Seo. One of its many chapels is dedicated to Peter Arbues, Aragon's first inquisitor, who was in charge of rooting out and punishing heretics, particularly Jews. He is said to have been assassinated while praying in 1485 by a Jewish convert. The Catholic Church later made Arbues a saint.
Ferdinand and Isabella, the founding patrons of the Spanish Inquisition, held court in Zaragoza for part of each year. Their throne room can be toured at the city's Palace of Aljaferia. The couple, known collectively in Spain as the Catholic Kings, are also remembered in history for uniting modern Spain and for financing the voyages of Christopher Columbus.
As for Goya, the city's most famous artist, the best place to see his large canvases is still the Prado Museum in Madrid. In Zaragoza, where he spent most of his early years, the basilica boasts two of his painted cupolas. Otherwise, his works are scattered among a number of galleries and museums. Plans to bring them together in one place have been on the drawing board for years.
Forty-five kilometres south of Zaragoza, the village of Fuendetodos preserved Goya's humble birthplace as a museum and displays a number of his engravings in a small gallery.
If you are driving to Fuendetodos, make a detour to Belchite, a shockingly vivid reminder of the horrors of war. Once a prosperous town with an economy based on olive oil, it was destroyed in 1937 with great loss of life during one of the nastiest battles of the Spanish Civil War. Instead of clearing the site, the survivors left it as it was, while building a replacement town next door.
The ruins aren't a museum in the traditional sense. There is no admission booth, no gate, no tour guides and no interpretive centre. Visitors can simply walk in and wander along the eerie, silent streets lined with smashed homes and shattered dreams. The walls of the derelict San Augustin Church attest to the former glory of the town's main place of worship, but most of the roof is now open to the sky. High above, in the shattered remains of a cupola, the carved figure of a bishop looks down on the wreckage. With his arms outstretched, he appears to be blessing the dead and absolving the perpetrators of their sins.
To really get acquainted with Mudejar architecture, one should visit Teruel, the largest city in southern Aragon. Teruel's four Moorish towers, one of them attached to the cathedral, are soaring, eye-catching structures of brick ornamented with columns and arches. The real treasure, however, is the cathedral's painted ceiling, a picture book of everyday life in the Middle Ages. It depicts carpenters, painters, scribes and others from the period wearing their normal dress. The works serve as models for costumes donned by the townspeople each Valentine's Day during the Festival of the Lovers.
Those annual festivities celebrate Teruel's famous lovers, Diego and Isabel, the Spanish version of Romeo and Juliet. They are buried side by side in a museum shrine, underneath two stone figures that reach their hands toward each other but never quite touch. According to legend, Isabel's father gave Diego five years to go off and earn enough money to marry his daughter. The young man returned with the bounty, just as Isabel was being married to someone else. He died of a broken heart and she gave up living one day later.
Lovers who visit the tomb leave notes about their own romantic aspirations. "I hope the story of my husband will be like this," one young woman wrote recently. Did she really want her man to die?
Thirty kilometres west of Teruel, Albarracin is a picture-book hill town designated a Spanish national monument. Its steep, narrow pedestrian streets lead past ancient pink-plastered houses to the village's cathedral and a breathtaking view over a patchwork of red-tiled roofs, steep cliffs and fortifications reminiscent of the Great Wall of China.
While southern Aragon is a land of barren plains, the north is defined by the Pyrenees' soaring peaks. But it, too, offers dramatic examples of religious fervour. The zeal of Christians here is written in stone at the entrance to Huesca's cathedral. Deep indentations in the wall could be mistaken for damage from a long-ago battle, but in reality they were gouged out over centuries by the hands of the faithful lovingly caressing the building.
North of the city, the San Juan Monastery is a mountainside fortress built over and into natural caves. During a period of Muslim-Christian warfare, the Catholic Church chose this remote location as the hiding place for a cup reputed to be the Holy Grail used by Christ at the last supper. A replica is now on display on an altar.
It was also religious strife that led to the building of Loarre Castle, a remote fortified outpost high in the Pyrenees. Designed to keep out Muslim invaders after the Christian reconquest, it is buffeted by high winds and partly obscured by jagged fingers of rock. It remains a stark but stunning reminder of Aragon's tumultuous history. Today, as a peaceful Aragon prepares to welcome the world, its many monuments associated with past strife have become fodder for tourists' cameras.
Expo 2008
Expo 2008 will be a small world's fair with big ambitions.
The summer-long event in Zaragoza, capital of the Spanish state of Aragon, will be small by definition because it is accredited as an international exhibition, not as a universal one. That means it faces restrictions on the size of its site (maximum 25 hectares) and the number of days it can stay open (three months). Still, Expo 2008 (June 14-Sept 14) should be a major event. Pavilions will be operated by 102 countries, only eight fewer than at Spain's previous world's fair, Expo 92 in Seville. And that earlier Spanish fair had the advantage of being designated a universal exhibition. The smaller Zaragoza fair has been successful in bringing countries on board by offering free space to a number of cash-strapped nations from the Caribbean, Africa and Latin America.
Unfortunately for North Americans, neither Canada nor the United States will be taking part. Canada will be at Expo 2008 in spirit, however. Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil will present a 75-minute water-themed show each day. Called The Awakening of the Serpent, it will be free with admission. Part parade, part spectacle, it will move through the grounds and feature acrobats, actors, gymnasts, singers and musicians.
Expo 2008 planners have worked to make their site seem bigger than it really is. They have arranged national pavilions in three vertical tiers, in effect tripling the available exhibit space. And they have created a new nature park immediately outside the grounds, adding an additional 120 hectares of public space.
As with past Expos, countries will use film, audio-visuals, interactive displays, live performances and ethnic cuisine to promote national trade and tourism.
Expo 2008's theme is water and sustainable development. Niger and Nigeria, for example, will centre their exhibit on Africa's Lake Chad, which has shrunk to roughly one-20th of its mid-century size. Andorra, by contrast, will be emphasizing the joys of using its frozen water for skiing, skating and other winter sports.
Be prepared to party late into the night if you go. In keeping with Spanish tradition, the grounds will stay open till 3 a.m. By contrast, the more sedate Germans closed their Expo 2000 in Hannover at 9 p.m.
Accommodation could be hard to come by. Forget about the new five-star hotel on the grounds. It's strictly for VIPs and government officials coming for national days. Otherwise, visitors will have to compete for 25,000 available beds: 10,000 in hotels, 6,000 in apartments, 4,000 in a new bungalow complex, 3,000 to 4,000 in private homes, and the rest in residences at universities, which wrap up their terms early. The other option is to come for the day from Madrid or Barcelona by train. The trip from Madrid takes one hour and 50 minutes, but a high-speed link to Barcelona is behind schedule and still being constructed. The train station is directly opposite the grounds and will be connected by an aerial tram.
Here are some of the highlights:
An on-site aquarium, which will remain open after the fair closes, is being billed as the largest in the world for displaying river life. It will contain fish from rivers on five continents: Africa's Nile, South America's Amazon, Asia's Mekong, Australia's Darling, and - from Europe - Spain's Ebro, which forms a semicircle around the site.
The central landmark will be a shimmering glass structure called the Water Pavilion. Its 22-storey open interior will feature an audio-visual presentation. The 23rd floor will house a restaurant with the best view of the fairgrounds.
The opening night show will be performed on a stage floating on the Ebro River and resembling a massive iceberg.
Aragon will have the largest pavilion, which will be shaped like a fruit basket.
Douglas McArthur
Pack your bags
EXPO 2008
INFORMATION . Adult tickets are 35 euros (about $51) for one day, double that price for three days. Tickets can be purchased through the website.
WHEN TO VISIT
A visit to Expo will be more comfortable in June and September than July and August, when the average high in Zaragoza is 32 C and many days can reach 45; average highs are 29 in June and 27 in September. Winters can be cool, with an average January high of 10.
HOW TO GET THERE
Air Canada will launch Toronto-Madrid service in June. Air Transat will operate spring, summer and fall flights from Toronto and Montreal to Madrid and Barcelona. There is train service from both cities to Zaragoza, making day trips a possibility.
WHERE TO STAY
Details on how to book rooms in private homes will be posted at once plans are finalized.