Navarra/Huesca Day 2

We rose fairly early on day 2 of our trip and were all downstairs eating breakfast by about 9 am.  Breakfast consisted of pastries, eggs if we wanted, various meats, cereal, bread and butter, milk, orange juice, coffee, tea, and tons of fruit.  Quite a nice combo.  Then we had an hour bus ride ahead of us before we arrived at our next historical site:  El Castillo de Olite, an old castle which was still standing despite the fact that all of the artwork/objects on the inside had been burned during the raid of Napoleon.

We enjoyed our visit very much, though I do think I would have learned more had there been an actual guided tour.  Still, I enjoyed the beautiful architecture and the chance to take some good pictures from one tower to another and sitting on a turret.  Very cool!  I only wish there had been more time to explore.  My pictures will do the talking here, whenever I finally manage to sort through them and upload them.

After returning to the bus, we drove 2 hours more before arriving in Huesca, the next city on our itinerary.  Here we were staying in a super classy hotel, only 2 to a room.  We almost immediately ate lunch - ham and melon and then some steak and potato thing...needless to say, I was not a fan (darn being a picky eater!).  But I did enjoy the conversation at my table.  I was sitting with my friend Katie, my friends Robert and Andrew, and my professor Aitor.  We chatted about where we were from, our universities, etc.

Oh and Shout out to Lindsey - embarrassing Spanish moment finally occurred...I mentioned that I would be super in debt after college (I don't know how this came up), but instead of saying I would be more than 50 mil (50,000) in debt, I said I would have more than 50 millones (50,000,000) in debt.  Oops! My professor and the bus driver definitely looked at me with their mouths open for a second before realizing my error...embarrassing!  But we all got a good laugh out of it.


After lunch, we had a couple hours before our next historical site visit, so my friend Elissa and I purchased our tickets for an upcoming Real Madrid soccer game and I borrowed my friend Katie's computer to use the Internet.

Next on our itinerary were visits to a church and cathedral in Huesca.  They were close enough to our hotel that we could walk.  So we were able to see a bit of the city - including a beautiful plaza with victorian-style buildings.  I enjoyed our visit to the cathedral, but we definitely did not have enough time to look at it thoroughly.  We didn't arrive there probably til after 5:30 and had to leave before mass began at 6pm.  Oh well.  It was an enjoyable visit anyway.

Next we stopped at a church called Iglesia de San Francisco el Viejo (St. Francis the Old).  It was a romanesque church - very beautiful to behold with its art objects, and frescoes.  We spent 45 minutes on our tour of this church and our guide did a fabulous job of explaining all of the historical details.  Again, see my photos.

Of course, because I decided not to fly home for my Grandma's wake and funeral, my family planned them for Saturday and they were going on about the time we were visiting the church.  So I was obsessive about what time it was and had a lot on my mind.  But having said a rosary on the bus and then finding a Mary statue with a place for votive offerings (which of course I took advantage of) helped a lot.

After finishing our visit, we were free for the rest of the night.  So my friends Katie, Elissa, and I stopped back at the hotel and then found a cute souvenir shop where we purchased postcards and a pizzeria where we ate dinner.  Real Italian-style thin crust pizza with pesto on top.  Not too bad, even though I never had pesto before and am not a huge fan of basil.

We then shopped a bit in a boutique before returning to the hotel.  I was asleep within an hour.

Enjoy my photos of the day's adventures (well the morning's adventures...have to make a new post for the others):

Peace and Blessings,
Melanie

Spanish Words of the Day:  iglesia = church, estatua = statue :)