‘Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone?’ sang Joni Mitchell. In the Spanish city of Zaragoza, people certainly know what they all too briefly had and what they’re now missing. Thanks to Covid-19, over the last few months they’ve gone from having a busy bustling city to not having it, to having it again and now back to not having it once more.
Like all Spanish cities, Zaragoza is normally a vibrant social centre with bars and restaurant terraces every few yards, with parks and plazas full of life where people meet, children play and everybody seems to talk at the same time.
Lockdown brought all that vitality to an abrupt halt. In a country where two-thirds of the people live in flats, many of which measure 60 square metres or less, Spain’s draconian lockdown restrictions required adults and children to stay inside for weeks.
The pandemic is threatening to strike once more at the health and wealth of Spain
So it was with an outburst of joy that people took to the streets again in May just in time to enjoy the good weather.
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