Segovia

June 5, 2010

We started our trip to Segovia by walking around the outskirts of town to the spot where Encarnita told us we HAD to get a picture. She says it is the most beautiful view of Segovia. We walked along the river up to where we thought we needed to be, but ended up in a park. We sat down to take the map out and the trees started raining little flowers and pollen stuff on us. Next to the park, we saw the Convent of Carmelitas Descalzos. We found out that we were just down the road from where we were supposed to be so we headed up the road and first went into La Iglesia de la Vera Cruz (a church). It was neat! There were little doors that lead to different rooms, and in the middle there was circular cave looking thing. Afterwards, we hiked up the road to the spot where we were supposed to be and took a million pictures of La Iglesia de la Vera Cruz y El Alca'zar (the monstrous castle we fell in love with!). Then we started walking toward Monasterio de Santa Maria del Parral. We went inside, but mass was going on so we didn't stay long. It seems like there is mass going on at all hours of every day in Spain. We had to rush back into town to our bus stop to catch a bus to La Granja, but on the way we found this park that I absolutely loved! It was so relaxing and beautiful with the river and the running water and the steps and the bridges and everythinggg :) We went to the Roman aqueducts on the way to the bus stop. It was amazing! Encarnita told me that there's a little story about why the Roman aqueducts were built. She said nobody knows if it's true, but everyone tells the story. She said there was this beautiful girl in Segovia who had to go fetch water every day from one side of town and bring it back to her home on the other side of town. A boy who fell in love with her built her the aqueduct as a gift and then asked her to marry him. She said yes, and the aqueducts remain. I thought that was really cute. We ran to catch our bus to La Granja, which is about 7 km outside of Segovia. La Granja is ENORMOUS! I wish we would have more time to see it all. We went into the palace and saw all of the paintings, sculptures, goregously decorated rooms, and such. Each room had a different theme. It reminded me a lot of the Royal Palace of Madrid. Inside, I touched a tapestry that was made in 1524 (wasn't supposed to touch it, but I really wanted to touch something that was almost 500 years old). Every room had something interesting in it, and there was something to see around every corner. I remember around one corner there was this fountain on the inside that was all lit up--it was so pretty. Then we went to the royal gardens! We only got to see a small part of them because there are sooo many and are huge, but they were beautiful! Encarnita said there are only 3 days of the year that all of the fountains there are running. We saw tons and tons of fountains, but only one running. We headed back to Segovia shortly after that and walked through the street of Juan Bravo to see the Roman architecture and a bunch of the churches on our way to the cathedral. Right in front of the cathedral is Plaza Mayor. I was watching a t.v. show about Segovia with Encarnita the other day and it said that Plaza Mayor isn't the largest, but it is definitely the most important plaza of Segovia. The cathedral was beautiful! Then we went to the castle Alca'zar. We walked across the bridge over the moat (minus the water) and into the castle. We saw the throne and some amazing stained glass. The view from the top was incredible! I could see all of Segovia. We finished our tour through the castle, bought Encarnita a little dish from the gift shop, and headed home. Encarnita told us that Segovia was famous for bells. She has a couple bell keychains that she loves because she can always find her keys. We didn't buy any bells there, but I bought a few postcards. Their lamb and mazapa'n (marzapan) is supposed to be fantastic too. We didn't really check the bus schedule back to the train station so we had to take a cab there to make it on time. After another long day of running through and around a small Spanish town, we were exhausted and passed out on the train ride home.