Nothing Rhymes with "Segovia"!

Location: Segovia, Spain

The last day trip I took before Christmas vacation was to Segovia, located roughly 60 miles Northeast and an hour´s drive outside of Madrid (or 30 minute train ride in my case). It's a small town with about 50,000 people.

It has 3 main historical sites: its aqueduct, cathedral, and alcázar.

Aqueduct
This is probably the most recognized and famous symbol of Segovia. It was built by the Romans (and contains the arches for which they are so famous) approximately 2,000 years ago.

This picturesque part is located in the old city center. In total, the aqueduct extends for 20 miles and connects to a nearby spring. And at its highest part stands 100 feet tall. All together, there are 167 arches (from what I read...I didn´t count).After climbing a lot of stairs, this is the view of the city from a ledge near the top of the aqueduct.
Cathedral
A little further into town is the cathedral. Located in the Plaza Mayor, it was constructed in the early 1500s and is considered to be Europe's last great Gothic cathedral. It was ordered to be built by the king after the town's original cathedral was destroyed a local mob, apparently in a revolt against the same king.As is typical with Spanish cathedrals, the ceilings are enormously tall and every spare piece of space (walls, columns, ceilings, etc) are intricately decorated.This is one of the main altars on the inside.

And another made of gold.

I unfortunately was not there at night to take this in person, but it is a particularly gorgeous shot of the cathedral when lit.

Alcázar
It is believed to have been built in the early 1100s as an Arab fort, but it was gradually expanded once the city was conquered by the Christians. Throughout the Middle Ages it remained one of the favorite residences of the Monarchs and a key fortress for the region.

It is located at the complete edge of town on a cliff's edge overlooking the valley below. And by having such as location, one can only enter through the small front entrance or attempt to scale the cliffs.

Although the Alcázar was originally built as a fortress but has served as a royal palace, a state prison, a Royal Artillery College and a military academy since then.

A shot of the main entrance, including its small arch bridge.And a close up of the turrets.
Of course no castle would be complete without an armory, and no armory would be complete without a full-fledged horseback knight.

I tried challenging him to a duel, but he ignored me.There were all kinds of rooms on the inside including a chapel, living quarters, waiting rooms, dining rooms, etc. My favorite was the "Hall of Monarchs" which included porcelain replicas of various kings seated around the entire room. You can see them below the ceiling.As mentioned, the building at one point housed an artillery school. They had an entire wing with early teaching materials, much of which was engineering-related. This picture for instance should look instantly recognizable for anyone who has taken intro Physics ("a cannon shoots a ball at x angle and x velocity...where does it land and what is its angle of impact"?)After that, the only part of the castle left was the tower, with a sole small spiral staircase in and out. It was actually quite tricky to have one person coming up with another going down; lets just say we had to get friendly.Fortunately the view was well worth the awkward rubbing with strangers. As a point of reference, the cathedral is the tall structure on the left-hand side.And this is the view of the valley which surrounds the Alcázar.

This was taken after exiting the building and a few minutes walk away. I liked it because it shows how steep and extensive the outer retaining walls are. Again, the cathedral is to the left.And this was taken from the same spot, looking back the other way over the valley. The Alcázar's turrets are visible on the right.
While I was enjoying the view from the top of the tower, I noticed there were walking paths in the valley below, and since there was time I figured I'd go find them.

This actually turned out to be my favorite part of the trip. It was the tail end of Fall at the time, so the leaves were still turning color and falling. This was the path on the way down from town.And the walking path which looped around the outer ring of the city.Along the way, there were views like this.

And this.As I mentioned before, the Alcázar sits on a cliff, which is really visible from the valley. A great shot of the entire castle.
I liked this area so much I wound up spending my last few hours wandering around the outer ring. And there was almost no one down there; I literally saw less than 5 people total.

This last shot was taken right around sunset while I was waiting to catch the bus.

In short, Segovia turned out to be one of my favorite experiences at the time and was a real surprise, especially the part about wandering outside the city. It was the first time I had more fun being lost than sticking to the major sites, which I feel is a good lesson to remember during my future travels.

As usual, more photos have been uploaded here.

Salamanca

Location: Salamanca, Spain















I recently went with 3 friends to Salamanca for a day trip, which is located about two hours northwest of Madrid by train. Because we were a little late getting our act together, we had to settle for a late afternoon train into the city on Saturday and a return trip to Madrid around the same time on Sunday.

We wound up spending almost 3 hours together at a nice white-table cloth restaurant over several courses of food and bottles of wine. That ended around midnight, and we were walking back to our hostel when we met two French students who convinced us to follow them into a nearby club.

This turned out to be an interesting experience because we quickly discovered that Salamanca is mostly a college town with the bars to prove it. Apparently the local university is the oldest one in Spain, having been established in 1218. But now it houses a large percentage of foreign exchange students, all of which seem to like a good party.

Although I talked to several people at the bar that night, not one of them was Spanish. I do, however, remember people from France, Australia, Scotland, and Ireland. The last one was particularly strange because they had spent over a year at UC Santa Barbara, which is about 90 minutes from Cal Poly, my Alma Mater in central California. Small world.

Had I been a bit younger, this bar would have definitely been for me. Unfamiliar with the local custom, I just ordered a beer. While I was waiting for the bartender to bring it, I looked around and noticed everyone else was doing shots. I found that strange but didn't put two-and-two together until later; my beer was €2.50 and hard alcohol shots were €1. These cost structures clearly bring out the best behavior in folks :)

Long story short, I finally threw in the towel and was the "party pooper" by leaving at 3am. I don't mind staying out late, but I had a long list of sites to see before our 3pm train the next day. I'm told the others stayed out until 5am, so perhaps it's not a big surprise I was the only one up early the next day.

My first stop in the morning was one of the highlights, a bridge in the corner of town called the "Puente Romano". It crosses the local river, Rio Tormes, and was originally built during the Roman occupation in the 1st century. Although there are many remnants of the Roman empire scattered around Spain, this was my first experience. I found it very cool to stand under it and contemplate how it was built approximately the same time Jesus lived.

Of course, up close it just looks like a bridge...
Next on the walking tour was the Casa de las Conchas ("House of Shells"), which as the name suggests has shells on it's outer walls.
Up close, this is what it looks like. I didn't have time to go inside, but it is now a library.
I had to go out of my way for the next site, but with a name like Casa de las Muertas ("House of the Dead") it's easy to understand why. It looks pretty normal from the street...
But on closer inspection it has very distinctive architecture, like this skull carving. It reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie (the second one which was so terrible).
There was a square right around the corner with a cool statue and fountain.
After Casa de las Muertas, I started to notice all kinds of demonic looking things around Salamanca. I wound up liking most of it, if for no other reason because it was unique. Here's a statue I walked by on a street corner, for instance.
And later I walked by another statue and stopped to look at the plaque, expecting it to be someone I'd never heard of. Turns out its Christopher Columbus, and at that moment I remembered that he had been commissioned by the Spanish government to explore the "New World". And the rest, as they say, is history.
Later on, I walked into a church and was surprised to discover they were in the middle of mass. I stood in the back and tried to look inconspicuous as I quietly snapped pictures. The service was being performed in Latin, which was cool to hear.
The altar was particularly spectacular. Notice the tiny-looking priest barely visible in the green cloth to get a sense of scale. Certainly a bit more impressive than the ones back home!
Another site I liked was the Torre del Clavero ("Clavero Tower"), which was built in the late 1400s and is noticeably different than its surroundings. There were all kinds of cheap brick structures in the blocks around it which were covered by spray-paint graffiti. And then there was this tower, ancient and untouched. The contrast was fascinating.
This next site wasn't in my guidebook but was fortunately on the local map I'd acquired. It's name is Palacio de la Salina, and I think it used to be a nobleman's house but is now just a historic landmark. Most of it looked the same as everything else in the city, except when I looked towards the ceiling and saw these guys.

You'll probably have to click on the pic below and get the full-size version to appreciate the detail in these demonic-looking figures. The lined the entire inside of the main courtyard.
More of them.
As with many cities in Spain, its most famous monument is the cathedral. Salamanca is unique because it has two - the "new" one (started in the 16th and completed in the 18th century) was constructed right beside the "old" one (finished in the 13th century). Of course the styles are different, and if I knew more about the subject it probably would have been interesting to have six centuries worth of architectural evolution side-by-side. But alas, I am but a lowly engineer, so most of it went over my head.

This is the newer (and larger) cathedral of the two.
And it was particularly beautiful when lit at night.
This was was taken on our way to dinner; anyone feel like a howl?
And I've saved the best (in my opinion) for last. Others had claimed Salamanca has one of the best Plaza Majors (main city squares) in the country. This was taken early on a Sunday morning before the traffic really picked up. It's even more impressive in person because all 4 sides of the square look like this.
All this walking around was starting to make me hungry, and I happened to walk by a small bakery right outside the main Plaza. So I popped in and bought these two items; each were 1€ and well worth it. The one on the left reminded me of a sugared sopapilla, and the other resembled a chocolate brownie with a graham-cracker crust.
And finally my favorite pic of the trip - the Plaza Mayor at midnight.

Holy Toledo

Location: Toledo, Spain

















Recently I took the advice of my coworkers and grabbed an early train out of Madrid to Toledo, located a mere 30 minutes away. My sole travel buddy was another tourist passing through Madrid as he toured Spain for 6 weeks on a bicycle. Obviously much more hardcore than me.

Like many of the cities in Spain, Toledo is rich in history. The Romans left behind a fortress from their occupation, and likewise many Visigoth churches are still present from their rule during the 6th century. The city also became home for the famous painter El Greco, and many of his works remain throughout the city.

We arrived at the train station located a little outside the city. After getting our bearings we started walking towards town, where we had to cross this bridge.
And the view from that bridge looking downstream. This is directly outside the city, which is slightly visible on the right-hand side.Much of the city looked like this with 3 or 4 story buildings and very narrow streets.
Lots of shops also had Damascene plates, swords, and armor. It's modern characteristic look is gold interlaced with black steel. Here's a shot of one particular shop's inventory, but they were many such ones.
And then there was the good stuff...
Here's me in an "on guard" stance holding a 1500€ (~$2000) Damascus sword. As you can tell from my huge grin, the saber-fencer in me was quite pleased with its light weight design.
I am proud to say that I was able to restrain myself from purchasing anything (not too difficult considering I didn't have much money)...but lets face it, walking around with a sword tends to make people nervous. But since the city is so close to Madrid, I can always return in the future :)

We quickly got thirsty from all the walking around and sword shopping, so we dropped into a local bar which was still packed with the post-lunch crowd. We eventually found seats at the bar and ordered two cañas (small beers), and much to our surprise we received free tapas with it.

This was my first experience with free tapas, and I have to admit that I am still hooked on the idea (perhaps the appeal is leftover from my grad school days). This is what arrived with our beers, which only cost ~$2.50 together.
And when we ordered a second round, we got another full plate of food again!

Of course we couldn't hang around drinking beer and eating free food all day, so we got back on the road. Next stop was Toledo's main attraction - the Cathedral. It took 3 centuries to build and was finally finished in 1493. Because it took so long to construct and obviously outlived numerous architects, the building itself reflects the various styles and trends in architecture throughout history. Sorry if you want to know more but that's as deep as my historical appreciation of architecture currently goes.

Taking pictures inside is strictly forbidden, and since I would never disrespect such a request these following pictures are credited to another, albeit "anonymous" author. But if you feel the need to complain that they are a bit blurry, he also wishes to remind you that he clearly couldn't utilize his camera's flash :)

A look down one of the long hallways. Just for reference, I'd guess those ceilings are at least 100 feet high.
This one is right outside the center altar called "Reredos". Notice the impressive cross in the middle and stained-glass windows above.
Same place but with another angle and taken further back.
This next part was actually my favorite of the whole experience. There is an altar in the back called "Transparente", and it goes all the way up to the ceiling and consists of solid marble and gold angels, cherubs, and saints. The picture doesn't do it credit, but the detail on the figures is simply amazing.
In another part, they have more art pieces from some of the most famous artists indluding El Greco, Goya, and Van Dyck. And then there's a separate room with nothing but really old Catholic garb. Check it.
Our next stop on the walking tour was another church to the Southwest, and although I thought I knew which one it was I'm not so sure now. This is what it looked like from afar.

And then another one up close.
Unfortunately we couldn't go it because there was a wedding. Too bad we weren't dressed up enough to attempt a crash!
We then hiked it back across town to the Plaza de Zocodover, which is the main square and market. The area also has lots of cafes and shops.
For dinner, I had a traditional Spanish dish called Paella. I think it always consists of baked dark brown rice and usually vegetables like peas, green beans, and beans. One also gets to specialize the it with something like seafood, but I chose the equivalent of a "meat lovers" with sausage, beef, and chicken. Really good stuff.
This particular establishment was located next door and was a little disheartening to see, but I guess they do wind up everywhere. The really depressing part is they had more business than our local place.
All in all a great place to visit for 1-2 day trip. And now I will leave you with my favorite picture taken which shows the massive cathedral towering over the rest of the city.
For additional pictures, click here.