I took a day trip to Segovia today! Segovia is most famous for its incredible Roman aqueduct that is still there today and was used up until the 19th century. I met up with a group of 8 other people at the bus station, having bought our tickets there just this morning, and we headed on the hour long bus ride out. I borrowed the first Harry Potter book in Spanish from my host mom here, and being able to easily read it, it was a fast ride. Five minutes from the station we made it to the aqueduct. I had seen pictures of it before, but it was still quite astonishing when I saw it. It was built in the 1st century AD and its highest point is 28 meters. It is sort of just right in the middle of the city too with everything built up around it.
From there we headed towards the plaza mayor and the cathedral. This was an incredibly beautiful sight of gothic architecture with lots of details. One of the people from our group had actually been in Segovia the weekend before and gone into the cathedral and said that it was just like other cathedrals we have all seen so we decided to just admire it from the outside rather than pay the extra money to go in.
After that it was a very short walk to the Alcazar. This is the palace that inspired Walt Disney for his tower in Sleeping Beauty. When buying out tickets we had a choice to pay 2 euros extra to climb the tower and all but one of us decided to do it. First we wandered through the different rooms, some with full suits of armor and weapons and others reconstructed to look like what the palace looked like before a lot of it was burned. Lots of beautiful paintings and tapestries along with very detailed work on the ceilings and walls.
When we bought the tickets to climb the tower there were warnings that it was 156 steps and not for the faint of heart. From the outside it didn't look that tall, and for me, wasn't that bad. The climb was steep on a very narrow spiral stair case where you had to get quite close to people if you had to pass. Everyone else seemed really tired after the climb, but I climb 7 flights of stairs to my apartment here so was just fine. The view from the top was phenomenal with a 360 degree view including both the town of Segovia and the countryside around it.
Wandering back towards the aqueduct to find lunch, we walked through the Jewish quarter which I think I enjoyed more than other people. I really like the old winding streets with houses smashed together but I think the others just saw it as a way to get back to the center.
We had a recommendation for lunch at a very good restaurant from our art history professor, but at more than 20 euros a person for lunch, we decided to go to the cafeteria nearby that was a lot cheaper and had a great view. I felt gross after lunch. I ordered the marinara sandwich that had fish, shrimp and asparagus. What I got was 2 pieces of incredibly white wonder bread, a tiny bit of fish, maybe 2 or 3 shrimp the size of a dime if that, and a few little pieces of asparagus all drenched in a red mayonnaise sauce. Along with a few french fries I was feeling incredibly unhealthy and not satisfied after that.
group minus kevin
But after that we headed to La Granja that was a 30 minute bus ride away to see the Palacio Real and gardens there. We decided to skip on paying to enter the palace since it was similar to a lot of other things we have already seen, and walked around in the gardens. There were incredibly beautiful and we all decided that we want to have gardens just like that. It was built to be a mini versailles and has lots of green areas and fountains. The only drawback was that they turn off the fountains in the summer. My host mother just told me that it is because they are very old fountains and don't recycle the water, it comes in from one place and then leaves.
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