We caught the comfy and super fast AVE train from Chamartín station arriving just outside Segovia after only about 30 minutes. The view from the station is pretty impressive:
It was an odd experience being frozen and burnt at the same time but an icy breeze cut through my jumper and the sun beat down so hard I was regretting not bringing suncream...with good reason... (my nose now looks like a cherry tomato someone's tacked to my face).
After literally falling out of the bus (I was leaning against the middle door and wasn't aware we'd stopped) we arrived in Segovia. A kind Spanish guy saw us looking about a bit helplessly and led us with him to the town centre. On the way we learnt he was an engineer who'd spent his year abroad in Nottingham, that his parents had been married in the church we passed and that his grandma lived not far from there. Thanks for your help Germán!
El Acueducto de Segovia was definitely a sight to see:
Incredibly tall and somewhat fragile looking in places, (I don't know how some of those stones were still standing!), El Acueducto runs for a fair distance through the centre of town. The amazing thing is that apparently it would still function as a means to transport water if it was reconnected to the spring that supplies it in the nearby mountains.
After a few photos Annie and I wandered on through the town towards the Plaza Mayor. We passed some hilarious graffiti:
Buttocks to you too!
And plenty of lovely little churches:
La Catedral de Santa María de Segovia is right in the Plaza Mayor and one of the most beautiful cathedrals I've seen in Spain.
We decided not to pay the entry fee as we'd seen Toledo Cathedral and wanted to have enough time for El Alcázar de Segovia. This is the famous Disney castle and is a little way out of the main city so you need to schedule in the walking time (though it's only about 20mins at most). We passed yet another church on the way:
Until we arrived at the gates of the Alcázar along with their resident Roman soldier.
Before we headed to the ticket office I got a few photos of the birds that filled the garden in front of the castle. It had rained the night before and everything was green and lush with the eerie calls of peacocks ringing through the trees:
We paid 7 euros for our tickets to the Alcázar that included access to the tower and the roof. The first room you're met with is full of suits of armour and stained glass:
To be honest I was fairly unimpressed with the interior of the castle. The majority of the rooms were bare except for a four-poster bed in one (the only piece of furniture in the room) and several wooden chairs in another. What stood out the most were the incredibly ornate ceilings.
This was the ceiling in the "Pineapple Room":
The most impressive ceiling was guilded in gold and around the walls were dozens of sculptures of royals from history:
It only took about half an hour to see all the rooms on show in the castle so we set off to climb the 152 steps of the tower. This is not for the claustrophobic!! Obviously in the middle ages health and safety wasn't a priority so the stairway is cripplingly narrow. There's barely enough space for two people to pass each other and with only one way up and the same way down jams are common. After we squeezed out at the top a relieved selfie was in order :)
At the top the views of the countryside around and back over the town are lovely:
By hanging over the battlements we were able to finally see the peacocks we'd heard screaming all morning. I got some super zoomed in photos:
We slowly walked back towards the cathedral to find somewhere for lunch. Sitting in the sun we ate jamón, queso de cabra and tumaca baguettes. It was only afterwards while we explored a bit more that we discovered the traditional dish of Segovia is cochinillo (what looks like a piglet that's come a cropper in a cartoon and then been roasted...)
I really wanted to try and get a good photo of the "Disney-looking" side of the Alcázar so we thought we'd walk down and round to the opposite hill-side. I got a couple of photos:
But then it started to rain gently so we headed back up the hill to sit in the garden and people watch for a bit under my umbrella:
I really enjoyed our trip to Segovia! It got a bit cold waiting for the bus to the station (Segovia is in the mountains so is usually a couple of degrees cooler than Madrid) but apart from that it was a great trip. My favourite thing that we saw has to be the Acueducto as it really is unique. I'm definitely looking forward to my next foray out of Madrid in May when I'll be travelling for a week through Andalucía!
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