Up to now, one could be forgiven for knowing next to nothing about the ancient Spanish city of Zaragoza, capital of Aragón and the country's fifth largest metropolis. For some reason, it's never had the same mystique as, say, Granada, Salamanca or Toledo. But that seems likely to change very soon.
Following the example of Barcelona, Seville and most recently Valencia - site of the 2007 America's Cup races - Zaragoza is poised to spring, or at least step, onto the world stage. The transforming event is Expo Zaragoza 2008, an international exposition that opened last Saturday and focuses on the timely themes of water and sustainable development.
If the Seville Expo of 1992 showed Spain rushing to modernize, "Zaragoza 2008 is meant to show a thoroughly modernized Spain committed to sustainability and preserving our quality of life," said Jerónimo Blasco, director of the consortium behind the event.
Before it closes on Sept. 14, organizers hope to have welcomed as many as 7 million visitors - 10 times the city's population - to the Expo campus and to the newly spruced up city center. With more than 100 countries participating, along with private corporations and organizations like the Red Cross and Oxfam, there are, thankfully, about 60 restaurants, bars and cafeterias providing a global buffet at which to refuel between exhibits. Some 3,400 performances are on tap by more than 350 international troupes and talents ranging from Cirque du Soleil to Bob Dylan to Daniel Barenboim.
Getting to the Expo will not be difficult. Since the completion earlier this year of the high-speed rail link known as the AVE, Zaragoza can now be reached in under 90 minutes from Madrid and less than two hours from Barcelona. Once visitors have made it to the stunning new Delicias Station, the Expo can be reached on foot, via taxi or bus - or even by air, in little green and blue cable cars that link the station with the site. Water taxis make the trip up the Ebro River from the city center.
Spread over 25 hectares, or 60 acres, bordered by the meandering river just west of the city center, the Expo site is punctuated with enough eye-catching architecture - like Zaha Hadid's sleek biomorphic covered-bridge pavilion - to ensure that environmentalists are not the only ones in attendance.
As host, Aragón is the only one of Spain's 17 autonomous regions to get its own pavilion. Designed by the Aragonese architecture firm of Olano & Mendo, it was inspired by local basket-weaving crafts; the reference is particularly evident at night when giant inflatable vegetables rise above its roof. Inside is a multimedia extravaganza that includes the participation of leading Spanish contemporary artists and filmmakers. But the Expo's signature edifice is the Water Tower, which, at nearly 76 meters, or 250 feet, tall, seems like a lot of building to house just two sculptures. The giant hanging sculpture "Splash" vividly captures in solid form the kinetic properties of water in motion. It can be admired from nearly two miles of ramps that wrap around the tower's interior. Elevators also rise to the top level, where a bar called Nube ("cloud" in Spanish) offers liquid refreshment and sweeping views of the entire Expo.
Closer to the river's edge, five thematic plazas powerfully, and sometimes playfully, highlight man's relationship with water. Covered with a dome of salt, the pavilion Thirst emphasizes innovation that has evolved from mankind's need for water. Another, the Beacon, designed to be energy efficient, is built of clay and is likened to a botijo, the Spanish terra-cotta drinking bottles that keep their contents several degrees colder than the ambient environment.
Such architectural puns turn out to be serious science and form a big part of the Expo's sustainability message. Striving to be carbon neutral, the Expo relies on such old-school low-tech cooling systems as well as state-of-the-art solar- and wind-generated power. Long before there were Expos to rally public interest in such things as water and sustainable development, Zaragoza was aware of the importance of water to its civic well-being, and an exploration of the city is, in many ways, a thematic extension of the Expo. The city, whose name is a permutation of Caesar Augustus, the emperor who brought the region under Roman control, has three museums that focus on water in the Roman era - the port, the thermal baths and a fairly advanced system of 2,000-year-old water pipes and sewers.
But even without the water theme, Zaragoza is a delight to explore. The city that held out through two sieges by Napoleon's army is today easily conquered on foot. Fanning out from the city's center - the vast Plaza del Pilar, home to three churches, including the towering Baroque Basilica of Virgen del Pilar - is a maze of narrow lanes, most of which have a few brick churches and Renaissance palaces amid a delightfully dense profusion of tapas bars and cafes.