Things to Do in Zaragoza in March

The old town's wine bars sit in repurposed medieval cellars. The air carries a permanent mineral coolness. The walls sweat faintly with centuries of stored humidity. This guided tasting walks you through a curated sequence of Aragonese wines, from the inky, black-fruit Garnachas of Campo de Borja to crisp, high-altitude whites grown in the Somontano foothills. Each glass is paired with tapas drawn from the market that morning: thin-sliced jamón with a silky, almost sweet fat cap, charred piquillo peppers stuffed with salt cod, and croquetas so freshly fried they crackle audibly when you break the crust. Your guide contextualises each pairing with the winemaking traditions of the Ebro basin. The pace is unhurried enough that you taste the tannin shift between the first and fourth pour.

About ninety minutes northwest of Zaragoza, the Bardenas Reales opens up like a landscape borrowed from the American Southwest and dropped into the Ebro Depression. Wind-carved clay pillars called cabezos rise from the parched basin floor in shades of ochre, rust, and chalk white. Their surfaces are grooved by millennia of erosion into shapes that look almost architectural. From the open roof hatch of a 4x4, the silence is startling. It is broken only by the creak of the vehicle on packed earth and the distant call of a Montagu's harrier circling above the steppe. Your guide navigates tracks that are off-limits to private cars, stopping at the Castildetierra pinnacle, the Pisquerra cliffs, and the flat expanses where the semi-desert meets irrigated farmland with jarring abruptness.

A private guide reshapes the city around your specific interests. You might trace the Roman colony of Caesaraugusta through its excavated theatre and forum beneath modern streets. You could decode the Mudéjar brickwork on the Aljafería Palace's exterior where geometric patterns catch the low March sunlight in sharp relief. Or you might navigate the Tubo quarter's tapas bars in sequence from traditional to avant-garde. The pace is yours: linger at the baroque excess of the Basílica del Pilar, where incense hangs in the nave and the dome frescoes by Goya peer down from a startling height. Skip ahead to a neighbourhood your guide knows from growing up here. What distinguishes this from a scripted walk is the improvisation. The willingness to detour into a courtyard because the jasmine is blooming early this year. Or duck into a shop because the owner just pulled fresh trenza de Almudévar from the oven.

This walking route threads the spine of the old city on foot, from the Moorish-era Aljafería, where horseshoe arches frame gardens still cool and damp with morning dew, through the Roman walls and into the medieval Jewish quarter where narrow streets trap the echo of your own footsteps. Your guide draws attention to details that vanish at walking speed without narration: the Hebrew inscription fragment embedded in a church wall on Calle del Coso, the difference between Mudéjar brick laid by Muslim craftsmen and the later Christian imitations that subtly break the pattern, the worn stone threshold of a doorway that has been in continuous use since the eleventh century. The route ends in Plaza del Pilar. The vast open space and the twin-towered basilica hit with full force after an hour spent in tight alleys.

The morning begins at the Mercado Central, a cast-iron and glass hall where vendors call out to regulars. The air is layered: raw fish on ice at the fishmonger's stall, roasted peppers and cured meats from the charcutería, the green vegetal scent of just-cut herbs piled in newspaper wraps. Your guide helps you select the ingredients you will cook. Bargaining is not expected here but conversation is. Every vendor has an opinion on the best way to prepare what they sell. Back in a teaching kitchen in the old town, you work through a hands-on class that typically includes a tortilla española cooked low and slow until the egg barely sets, a regional dish built around seasonal produce, and a dessert tied to Aragonese tradition. You eat what you cook, seated together, with local wine poured alongside.

An hour and a half north of Zaragoza, the Somontano wine region occupies a transitional landscape where the dry Ebro plain buckles upward into the Pyrenean foothills. The vineyards terrace along south-facing slopes where the soil shifts from clay to limestone within a single row. The excursion visits working bodegas where you taste directly from barrel and bottle. Somontano's Gewürztraminer and Moristel varietals carry a floral, almost resinous intensity that surprises anyone expecting another Rioja. The day's second act is Alquézar, a medieval village draped over a canyon rim above the Río Vero. The sound of falling water rises from the gorge below. The sandstone houses glow amber in the afternoon light. The Sierra de Guara cliffs frame the village on every side. The paths along the canyon edge offer views that deepen with each turn.