Zaragoza it is a unique city for me. I happened to be there by chance, nothing organized or booked. To adventure. I was looking for a low cost hotel that it also had a safe parking for the car and I was looking for it in the center to be able to walk around that city that seemed to be waiting to be discovered. I found a NH hotel, not in the center but in the center, a stone's throw from the Church of the Madonna del Pilar and, believe me, I say two steps because they were really two steps… I just needed to cross the street to enter the Church!
Un three stars of great respect, at very convenient prices and with private, covered parking and super cheap prices. Leaving the car and placing the luggage in the room, I went down to the center, along the Ebro river and its beautiful bridges, a modern one an ancient and a modern one and then an ancient one… a fusion between the old and the new that doesn't clash but reassures.
La Church of the Madonna del Pilar it overlooks the Ebro on one side and the Pilar square on the other, where a huge and refreshing fountain delights tourists with its water features. Admission to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar is free. The interior is beautiful and evocative but I would like to focus on the detail that gave the church its name: pilar.
Pilar is a pillar which, according to legend, would have appeared, carried by the Madonna and the Angels, to the apostle James while he was in prayer on the bank of the Ebro. Santiago received the message of the Redeemer from Our Lady and the order to build a Basilica right where she had placed that pillar. And it is precisely around that pillar that the Church of Our Lady of the Pillar was erected, whose cult attracts pilgrims from all over the world. Also Pope John Paul II he went to visit Zaragoza and, kneeling at the foot of the Pilar, kissed it as do all the believers who raise their prayers to Our Lady of Pilar.
