It's right one the Calle Juan Bravo, the main street, in Segovia. Close to the Cathedral and the Castle. It's hard to see the sign of the hostal unless you pay attention to it. Its located on the first floor. It's the cleanest hostal I've ever slept in Spain. I am not sure whether the owners, two senior citizens, speak English, though. It gets pretty noisy on the weekend nights since it's close to restaurants and bars. 33 euro for double room

I apparently lack motivation at times. Madrid is so close to other cities worthy of a look, yet I haven't done much adventuring within Spain. So at Lindsey's suggestion, we decided to become weekend warriors and try to visit a new city each weekend. First stop? Segovia in Comunidad Autonoma de Castille y Leon. We took the cercanias train out of the Chamartin train station and only paid about 10 euros round trip. It was about 1.5-2 hours away or so. The train station is about a 30 minute walk to the Plaza Mayor, but there is a bus you can take if you don't feel like walking.


"Segovia rewards the wanderer" and so at the behest of Let's Go!, we ditched our maps and wandered around a bit. And it was right. We found our reward in some ice cold cañas and free pinchos at a local dive bar haha. We made sure to continue to reward ourselves and wandered into a few more.

Segovia is also known for its Cochinillo Asado. I am also known for nearly puking when I saw it.

We rented a big Citroen Diesel Sedan in Madrid for our trip to Segovia for 180 Euros for three days, and it was the best we could do without reservations.  Getting out of Madrid was an interesting endeavour and we made a couple of wrong turns before we got it right.

The drive to Segovia was very beautiful.  It took us over the Sierra Guadarramas.  These mountains formerly were the site of the royal hunting grounds.  The road had lots of hairpin turns and we went up over 1800 meters in elevation (well over a mile high -- eat your heart out Denver).  It got quite cold up there too -- 7 degress celsius.  There was even snow and a ski area!  The pine trees here were tall, gnarly and very knobby.  Quite different than Wyoming pines!

Segovia sits just off the Sierras on a hill near a river.  It's a beautiful setting.  It has a still functioning Roman Aqueduct that is over 1,000 years old!  Segovia was a seat of Roman power, and still has a statue commemorating Roman times, a wolf nursing the two "founders of Rome" Romulus and Remus.

We found our hotel on the outskirts of Segovia, the Husa Puerto Segovia.  It is a clean 3 star hotel, with twin beds and a big bath.  We checked in, dropped the bags, and headed back to town to explore the city.  We parked near the Aqueduct and walked up under it into the town in search of the cathedral and the alcazar.  Alcazar is the Arabic word for fortress or castle.  We walked down the Gran Via to look for a place for lunch and found a nice one right on the sidewalk.  Jessica and I had the mixed plate of the day -- grilled chicken, peppers, fried potatoes and fried eggs over the top, with salad.  It was simple but tasty.

We went on to the Cathedral and took the tour via audio guides.  It was a gorgeous cathedral with a huge organ, beautiful stained glass, amazing art and ornate chapels (cippillas).  It is even more beautiful so close to Easter -- with flowers and all the preparations for Easter Sunday.

We walked down to the Alcazar, which was hidden from view until we came right upon it.  It was breathtaking to see.  It is purportedly one of the models used in designing the Castle at Disneyland.  It has a moat, complete with drawbridge, and is surrounded on three sides by the moat and a river.  Queen Isabel was crowned here.  Phillip II and Maria of Austria were married here.  We did the audio tour here as well.  It had great views of the surrounding countryside from the Terrace above!  The ceiling of the main court room was amazing -- intricately hand carved and painted ceilings, tapestries on the walls, and the original thrones of Ferdinand and Isabel.  We also got to see many things from that period of time such as suits of armor, cross bows, implements, and maps.

We walked back up the hill and started another tapas crawl.  We hit on a great one on the plaza at the Hotel Infanta Isabel.  We had ceviche, gambas (prawns), jamon iberico, etc.  Scottie always gets a little queasy on the jamon here -- he cannot stand anything on the bone.  At on of the tapas places, the waiter made a big deal of unveiling the jamon still on the ham leg, and shaving off thin morsels for us.  Scottie did not eat at that bar!  We hit a couple of other tapas places along the way, then ended up in an Irish Pub.  Those Irish are amazing-- Pubs must be their number one export!  I had a sneezing fit at this bar, and sneezed 18 times in a row.  Not sure what started it, but decided it was best to move on and get some sleep.  On the way to the car, we stopped at local bakery and bought a box of fresh cookies.  They were delicious! 

Estos montes se encuentran situados bajando del puerto de navacerrada direccion a segovia. Albergan uno de los mejores pinares y se puede recorrer una senda ecologica.

Little city w/ a heavy Roman influence. Visited on the way to Bilbao.

There are tons of restaurants around the city so it is quite difficult to choose from. I ended up in Mesón Don Sancho because it looked quite original. It is located very close from "El Acueducto de Segovia" and the service was superb. The chef, who ended up being the owner, was extremely nice and fun too. The typical dish in Segovia is "cochinillo" (young pork) but as I don´t eat much red meat, I had some fish. Everything was good and the place is one of those for romantic dinners, with candles and stuff.

We outsmarted the Turkish girls this morning.  We beat them to the shower!  This was a big deal to us because they had taken about 3 hours in the bathroom the day before.  This time, we got them back!  Just kidding.  We really needed to get out of there and get to Segovia.  That was the day trip we had planned.

Segovia is very beautiful and very small.  It is known as a UNESCO World Heritage sight.  It's actually my mom's goal to visit every single one in the world.  But I think there are literally a million.  Well, this was my 4th World Heritage sight, at least.  Sometimes we visit them without knowing that they are.  But in Segovia, they made it their business to tell you that they were a World Heritage sight.  So we spent the day there looking at the sights and making our way to "Sleeping Beauty's Castle."  No kidding, the Disneyland castle is actually modeled after this one.  It's a real castle.  What a sight.  And the water was even better here than in Madrid!  I just kept going to the bathroom and filling up a bottle straight from the tap.  I'm a California girl and that is unheard of there.  Not because you'll get sick by drinking tap water (well, maybe if you live in LA) but because it tastes so gross.  Well, here it tasted like fresh water from a spring.  No kidding. 

Segovia is really a day trip kind of place.  We didn't need to stay much longer than that.  But it was such a nice was to get out of the city and to enjoy our last days in Spain.  That night we had one final dinner with our friends and our new friend from Israel and the next morning we flew home.

Today’s visit to Segovia is distinct. It’s much easier to travel now. I think it’s because I’ve already done it. Each time after that is easier than the first.

Segovia is much like Toledo, a small, medieval Spanish town that served as the proverbial ping pong ball between the Christian and Muslim religions of the time. Much of Segovian architecture reflects this intense battle for power over the city.

Both the Catedral and the Alcazar are very strange structures. Looking at them the first time, you would think you were in Saudi Arabia. After looking around, though, the Plazas and terraces remind you of your presence in Castilla y Leon. It’s an easy city to visit. The entire thing is walking distance, and the map is ridiculously well-detailed with the churches and museums that can be seen.

My camera ran out of batteries and my credit card doesn’t work. I don’t know what happened, but I plan to call my bank tonight and yell.

People hate tourists everywhere, but especially in small towns. The concept is rather ridiculous. Especially considering that without tourism, Segovia would have literally been a ghost town with some sweet religious structures. The majority of the photos that I took today are of the streets of Segovia, the Aqueduct and the Alcazar.

Segovia has a distinct style to its everyday buildings, which includes a classic stucco-look with raised relief circles protruding from it. It’s slopy and clearly uniquely Segovian.

All the awesome churches begin to look alike after awhile, but what still fascinates me in every cathedral or church I’ve been in here is the quality of the choir seats. They are each carved from wood (mahogany?) and are all identical. The choir seats at the Catedral here were taken from the original Catedral of Segovia, which nobody liked anymore. When the new one was built, they moved the sweet choir chairs into its center, a common place for such things in Spanish Cathedrals.

I learned that a “Cathedral” is not just another church. It’s actually the place where the bishop has his church, and all other churches in the area live underneath the rules of that one. Although I don’t think that the rules of Catholicism change frequently or with respect to the opinion of Bishops within the church.

After my visit to the Prado and Thyssen Museums yesterday, I realized that I don’t much like museums, and I confirmed that suspicion today when I visited the rip-off museum at the Alcazar. It’s bullshit. A bunch of old stuff collected over the years. Unless you really dig military history, it’s not worth the 4 Euro.

The mullet project has begun.

Segovia doesn’t really have many crafts to call its own like Toledo does. So many of the shops sell Toledo black/gold/blue jewelry to ignorant tourists for twice the price that you’d find in Toledo.

Instead of paying for a tour guide, just visit the popular places at busy times. There is bound to be an English-Speaking tour guide at your disposal, and the information they spout off is free, although they tend to get pissed off if you linger for too long or make yourself too obvious.

I’m going to walk around a bit more, but not going to spend the entire day here as I intended to. It’s 3:00pm now, and I will probably leave on a 5pm bus. Segovia is a half day if you travel by yourself, but possibly a full day if it’s crowded and if you have a big group of people

This was the phrase of the day from our guide, a loveable maternal professor from Puerto Rico. We saw the cathedral, the aqueduct, and much more!

En este corto viaje de fin de semana a Segovia, vamos a visitar la exposición de arte religioso "Las Edades del Hombre", que la edición de este año se llevó a cabo en Segovia.
Es una mañana de noviembre, fría, lluviosa, en esta Castilla de clima continental, con todo lo que ya quiere decir eso.
Estando de viaje se ven las cosas de otra forma, y las ilusiones y expectativas que generan los viajes bien hacen superar estas pequeñas incomodidades.  (!!Recuerdo sentir el pantalón empapado dentro de la catedral, mientras admiraba tanto arte!!!).

Lugares de interés turístico

La ciudad vieja de Segovia fue declarada Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO en 1985.

The old city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Sus principales monumentos son:

• El recinto amurallado.
• El acueducto romano.
• El alcázar medieval.
• El conjunto de iglesias románicas, donde destacan San Esteban, San Millán y san Martín.
• La catedral gótica.