[ Nov.2019 ] You can go up the tower of Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, the huge church in Zaragoza in Spain.
Fortunately there is a lift to go up there, which costs €3 per person.
This lift is situated at the end of north west of the Basilica.
From the point where you get off the lift, you have to walk up for about 2 storeys and the last part was the spiral staircase.
The top was the room with the closed windows.
So we had to take photos through the dirty glass.
Zaragoza seen from the tower was quite an ordinary town.
Only one part of the old town was full of small houses with red roofs, but generally, the town was a mixture of old and new buildings, which was not particularly beautiful.
We could see a row of wind turbines far away.
Zaragoza is famous for the cold strong winds, so they must be generating a lot of electricity.
On the way back down, there was a part where we could see the roof of the Basilica without windows, with the domes made of green, yellow, blue and white tiles.
It was a cold day, so we had a rest for a while within a chapel of the Basilica.
I noticed that local people came into the church from one end and walked through to get out from the other end.
People seemed using this huge church as a street.
Here my husband murmured “Because of this religion, the art has developed”.
That is true.
Not only art, but various things of the society was established because of the imagination of the people who believe in the story called Bible.
I felt somewhat uneasy to think that this society is based on something unproven.
But this is only a part of the world.
In other parts of the world, people who believe in something else are running their own societies, but the world of human beings has coherence to some extent and that is maybe because the basic ideas of humans, such as what is good and what is bad are similar, or at least becoming similar.
Sitting on the bench of a chapel made me think philosophical things which are far from my everyday life.
We got out of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar and moved to San Salvador Cathedral which people call La Seo.
The cathedral is much smaller than the Basilica.
It had a lovely atmosphere with the recorded hymn.
This cathedral was started constructed during the second half of the 12th century.
Unfortunately the photography was not allowed here, either, so I just took a couple of photos secretly.
Within the space, the choir was situated in the centre and about 20 chapels were surrounding it.
Each chapel had a information board.
As Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, there was a intricate sculpture made of alabaster and that was the high altarpiece here, made in 1434.
By the way, to enter La Seo, you have to pay €4.
The leaflet is explaining that it is for the maintenance.
