Lilly in the world

... or "stone monastery" was one of the first places I wanted to visit here in Aragón. Being listed on TripAdvisor as No.2 recommendation of Zaragoza region, I couldn't wait to go. But, I was patient and waited for the good weather to come :). So we finally went at the beginning of May!

Monasterio itself was quite nice but nature around was more impressive. Moreover, as it was the middle of spring here in Spain, trees and flowers were blooming and landscape had the most beautiful shades of newly-born green. Place is criss-crossed with running creeks and splendid waterfalls are scattered over the whole area, so there's much to see. Small, big, broad, narrow, various shapes: every category you can imagine :) Pictures perhaps best speak for themselves: 

On the other hand, I'm sad to admit that there were also things I wasn't particularly happy about... For example, I was really disappointed with the high number of people there. After over three months of living in the city with more than 700,000 people, I was literally desperate to get away from the urban area to let off a bit of steam and relax in nature. (Of course this was also owing to my origins from my beautiful and ever-precious High Tatras mountains in Slovakia and consequent close-relationship with nature, so I was really eager to get out.) However, we literally had to wait for the tickets to enter the park as well as in the park itself to pass through some paths. Also, the waiting period to enter the cave was more than one hour with looong queue of impatient visitors attached. I have never been there before, so I don't know if this can be considered a common situation or not: necessary to add that this may have been caused by the fact that the day before was a national holiday, so due to a long weekend a lot of people probably headed for a trip to nature...

During our walking many interesting topics came up. For example, I tried to explain multicoloured political history of Slovakia and some of the present political attitudes and moods in my country. Though challenge! However, one of the topics people here frequently confront me with is definitely worth sharing. It's the one thing that keeps me amazed every time I think about it: Isn't it impressive that Slovak people understand Czech people even though they are two different nations and speak two distinct languages? I only fully realised this once I'm 'longer-term-abroad' because so far I had considered it normal. OK, now it's true that younger generations are loosing this ability and so on, but still. My personal experience is that majority of students here cannot comprehend that people from two independent countries understand each other. I get this question often here: "But, do you speak Czech?" "Well, yes, I do, but I don't need to," I reply. How cool is that? :) 

Thanks guys for a nice day full of interesting conversation way beyond polite 'how do you do'. :)

Place: Monasterio de Piedra, Aragón, Spain 

Date: May 2, 2015

Cost: 22€ return ticket for bus, 15€ entrance to the park and monastery

Overall opinion: It's definitely worth it, but it could be little less expensive and less crowded.

... AND I did my first proper unexpected photobomb! On our way back we stopped at Calatayud bus station where these magnificent pictures were taken by Clotilde's camera: