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Zaragoza sits at the precise geographical centre between Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia, and this positioning has defined its character for two thousand years. The Romans founded Caesaraugusta here in 25 BC as a veterans' colony for Augustus's soldiers, and the city grid they laid out was so well designed that it formed the skeleton of the medieval street pattern that survives today. The Basilica del Pilar on the Ebro riverfront, with its eleven domes and twin towers reflected in the river, commemorates what tradition holds was the first Marian apparition in history: the Virgin Mary supposedly appeared to Saint James here in 40 AD, before either was dead. The basilica is the most visited religious site in Spain after the Santiago de Compostela cathedral.

The Aljaferia Palace, built by the Banu Hud dynasty in the 11th century when Zaragoza was the capital of the taifa kingdom of Saraqusta, is the finest Moorish palace outside Andalusia.

Its ornamental carving and geometric tilework are extraordinary by any standard, and unlike the Alhambra, the crowds here are manageable. The Aragonese parliament has used it since 1987. La Seo cathedral, built over the main mosque after the Christian reconquest in 1118, combines Romanesque, Gothic, Mudejar and Baroque styles in a way that a building constructed across four centuries would necessarily do, and its tapestry museum holds one of the best collections of medieval Flemish weaving in Europe.