Calatayud

Yesterday I really wanted to get away from Zaragoza for a while, so we went to Calatayud. It's 90kms drive, on motorway, but rather an old one which wouldn't get a seal of approval these days; steep slopes and sharp bends-often both at the same time. It's the road to Madrid and there was much more traffic than we're used to on the motorway to Huesca.
I wanted to see the castle in Calatayud; from the motorway it makes an impressive silhouette. Don't bother trying to get close to it! We did; struggling up a steep track finally to find a rather broken down wreck. Not romantic or picturesque, just broken down.
The town itself was rather nice. On the route up to the castle there were two Mudejar towers.

nice statue of man reading and dog

Statue of the Baron de Warsage

Detail of the Mudejar tower of the church of St Andrew

Really impressive Plateresque doorway, 16th cen

Outside the Modernist bullring

La Almunia de Doña Godina; another Mudejar tower

One thing we noticed: in these towns of Mudejar towers, where the Moorish inhabitants were evicted from their homes by the reconquest, their "descendants" are there again in considerable numbers, enriching the cultural "mix".