Spain Day 9

Segovia is a small town an hour northwest of Madrid. We took the bus on a warm, sunny morning that quickly turned cloudy and cold. We believe that Segovia is at a higher elevation than Madrid but haven't done the research to prove it. We started out with a cafe con leche(latte) and croissant from the Cafe down the street from our hotel then proceeded to walk to the bus station. It was down hill the whole way and it helped me orient myself in the city more. We caught the 10am bus to Segovia.

Along the way we say many mountains, cows, bulls and sheep. It was very scenic. At the bus station, we grabbed a map of the town and made our way to one of the main attractions, the Roman aqueduct. This aqueduct was built in the first century A.D. with no mortar and is still standing although not functioning.

It was very impressive. We climbed up a staircase beside the aqueduct to enter into the old city. The main road was under construction so very messy and noisy. I can't imagine what it's like here in the middle of tourist season. It must get very crowded. We stopped in the main square to eat our lunch of crackers and cheese (still left from San Sebastian) and then went into the cathedral. The inside of the main part of the cathedral was much like the inside of the cathedral in Toledo. The outside was quite different and it also included an inner garden, which was quite beautiful.

While inside the cathedral we started hearing shouting and whistleblowing and cheering like all of a sudden we were hearing echos of a football game. So we went outside and there in the plaza was some sort of protest. It didn't look violent but there were police keeping things under control. As our Spanish is below elementary, we had no idea what was going on. I was a little intimidated though.

As nothing much was happening we started heading towards the other main attraction in Segovia which is the Alcazar or castle. Along the way, we walked by this nun and we thought she was quite quaint-looking.

This is the Alcazar. We heard it said that Walt Disney used it as one of his models for the Disney castles.

Inside we saw all sorts of neat things, old bedrooms, throne room and the armoury.

Then we walked up 152 windy stairs to the top of one of the towers.
And the breathtaking view of countryside and town were definitely worth it.

This is the 'drawbridge' and empty moat surrounding the castle.

Back in Madrid, we raced up all the steep hills we could find to the Egyptian monument in Parc del Ouest to see the sunset. It was stunning!

Then we did some more shopping and went to another sangria bar that we had found earlier for sangria, mushrooms and tortilla.