On Saturday morning, Sarah and I took a regional train (my favourite kind, really) from Madrid to Segovia and checked into the Pension Ferri, a guesthouse in a tiny alleyway off the town’s central plaza. Being an old stone building, the guesthouse was surprisingly cool, despite the heat outside. The owner gave us a price that was almost double what he’d said on the phone. After making some protests in Lonely Planet Spanish, he relented with an “O.K., you got me,” kind of expression, and gave us the right price. It was quite a difference.
Segovia itself is a beautiful town. The old part of town sits upon a hill, and is entirely enclosed by tall walls. At one end of town is a fairy-tale castle, built in the early 19th century to replace the ancient (and probably more practical) fortress which had burnt down. The town centre is the Plaza Mayor, on the edge of which sits a gigantic cathedral in pale granite. The rest of the old town is filled with beautiful, formal gardens, narrow cobbled streets, hidden plazas and stone houses with amazingly intricate facades. At the other end of the walls from the castle begins the Roman aqueduct, nine hundred metres of arches that form part of a fourteen-kilometre system for carrying water to the city from a nearby mountain. It is also built of local granite, without mortar. It is in amazingly good condition – the fine lines on the stone have worn a little, but the whole thing is intact. I’ve seen other aqueducts, but nothing quite as grand and beautiful. Sarah and I took a lot of photos.
Unlike Italy, it seems that most Spanish churches charge for admission, so I didn’t see the inside of any. Instead, we walked along almost every street in the town, and to a few churches outside the walls. I spent one pleasant afternoon asleep on the perfectly manicured lawn of some lord’s house, now converted into the Segovia Museum.
Yesterday afternoon I discovered the delight that is chocolate con churros. Basically, a warm bowl of melted chocolate, served with sticks of fried pastry for dipping. Bliss. Staying at a guesthouse rather than a hostel meant that we had no cooking facilities, and Segovia is the kind of town that seems to shut down on afternoons and Sundays (covering all of the time we spent there), so other than the chocolate, we ate a lot of bread and cheese. One night we made a pretty good salad from entirely tinned ingredients.
This morning I take a train from Segovia and leave Sarah on it as she continues to Madrid while I make a change at Villalba. Another change at Miranda de Ebro, and some time this afternoon I’ll arrive in Bilbao.
I’ve finally had the chance to upload a backlog of photos. The entire Segovia photoset is here. Barcelona, here. Rome, here. I haven’t had time to rotate or label much, so far.