Spain, The Alcázar of Segovia

From the square we walked towards the centre of the old city into the sociable main square, the Plaza Mayor, and followed a street adjacent to the cathedral and walked in the direction of the Alcázar, which is the most visited castle in all of Spain. The route took us through narrow streets past craft shops and churches and eventually brought us out at the north of the city on the top of a rocky outcrop that was the location of the fortress that was begun in the twelfth century and was subsequently occupied by a succession of Castilian monarchs from Alfonso X to Phillip II and Charles III. It has a rather modern appearance because in the nineteenth century it was destroyed by fire but was restored to its present magnificent status soon after.

Segovia and the Spanish tourist board would have us believe that the Alcázar was the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Cinderella’s Castle at Disneyland in California and Disneyworld in Florida but there is no real evidence for this and in fact it is more likely that the famous icon of the Disney empire was inspired principally by Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria and several French palaces, most notably Louis XIV’s Versailles although it is slightly possible that the Alcázar in Segovia may also have been an important influence as well.

The last time we visited Segovia in March 2009 there were brilliant blue skies and excellent weather but this morning it was rather cold and miserable and this matched exactly how Christine was feeling so on this occasion we didn’t go inside but instead made do with an external viewing and then walked back to the Plaza Mayor by a different route that took us close to the northern walls of the old walled city with some glorious views stretching out over the plains of Castilla y Leon.

In the main square we looked for somewhere to sit and have a drink but it was really too unpleasant to sit outside so we went to the bar in the Sercotel Infanta Isabel where we were glad to sit down in the warm. Micky, Sue and Kim had a coffee and I had a beer which meant the inevitable tapas but Christine was feeling even worse than before as the effect of the alcohol stubbornly refuse to wear off and it was clear that she was unlikely to make a quick recovery and so the best thing to do was to return to Ávila where she could suffer quietly in the comfort of her room.

While we sat there local people came and went and I began to think about all the reasons that I like Spain and one is that for someone like me on the shorter side most of the people are what I regard as normal size. According to Eurostat the Spanish are the shortest people in Europe and the average height for a man is five foot seven inches and I feel that that is just about the perfect size and it makes me feel comfortable. Officially Dutch men are the tallest at an average of five foot ten inches and although not included in the Eurostat figures the Croatians claim to be an average six foot one inch. We went there last year and I can confirm that they are indeed big lads.

After the drink stop we returned to the aqueduct where the dancing had stopped now and we collected the car and drove back to Ávila. It was overcast but dry but as we approached the city we could see a towering wall of black cloud building up directly in front of us and just a few kilometres out of the city the rain started to fall and we all knew that it was set in for the rest of the day.

Yesterday when we walked through the Puerta de Santa Teresa we had the afternoon sun on our backs but today there was just a steady pitter patter of rain on our umbrellas so we walked quickly through the sodden streets back to the hotel where Christine went immediately to her room and that was the last that we saw of her all day.

Spain, The Aqueduct of Segovia

When we had retired to bed the previous night there had been a clear sky so it was disappointing to wake up to the sound of falling rain and on opening the shutters a full examination of the weather revealed overcast skies and a rather soggy, looking sorry for itself, Ávila. But it was still early so we closed the shutters and slept on for an hour and hoped that it would improve. Sadly this was not to be and when we went down for breakfast it looked certain that this was going to be an umbrella sort of day.

Earlier in the year in Krakow Sue had overdone the alcohol one night and gone to bed feeling unwell but she was at least sufficiently recovered the next day to make it for breakfast but this morning Christine had had so much wine the previous night that she couldn’t face even a cup of tea let alone the fried eggs, tortilla and bacon and she excused herself from the breakfast room as soon as the plates were loaded up and started arriving at the table. The rest of us carried on and had another excellent meal and chatted like Methodist abolitionists about the evils of drink.

Even after we had finished breakfast an hour later she hadn’t begun to improve but although she was clearly unwell she decided that she would still accompany us on the planned drive to Segovia about sixty kilometers away and we all assured her that the fresh air would do her good and she was certain to start feeling better sometime soon.

It was still raining when we left the hotel and walked through the damp streets to the underground car park where we picked up the car and squeezed ourselves into the inadequate seats of the BMW but as we drove out of the city it started to brighten up a little and the rain thankfully eased off. To avoid the toll we took the national highway rather than the motorway option and this being a Sunday morning the road was almost completely empty and it was an easy journey.

To the south of the highway was the Sierra de Guadarrama and on the highest mountain in the whole range, the Peñalara, we could see snow covering the top of its two thousand, one hundred metre peak. The approach to Segovia was spectacular and still some way out of the city we could see it rising from the plain on a convenient outcrop of rock with a spectacular mountain backdrop and the Cathedral and the Alcázar reaching dramatically into the grey sky. The road dropped into the city and we found a convenient underground car park close to the Roman aqueduct.

The aqueduct is the most recognised and famous historical symbol of Segovia. It is the largest Roman structure still standing in Spain and was built at the end of first to the early second century AD by the Romans during their occupation of the Iberian Peninsula to bring water from the Río Frío about eighteen kilometres away and requiring an elevated section in its final kilometer from the Sierra de Guadarrama to the walls of the old town. This elevated section is supported by an engineering achievement of one hundred and sixty-six arches and one hundred and twenty pillars constructed on two levels. It is twenty eight metres high and constructed with over twenty thousand large, rough-hewn granite blocks, which are joined without mortar or clamps and have remained in place for two thousand years.

In the Plaza de Azeguego directly below the final, highest and most impressive section of the aqueduct there was a lot of activity as a band played and men in flamenco sombreros and black capes danced with local ladies and some of the locals and the tourist joined in. We weren’t sure what it was all about but it looked good fun and everyone was enjoying themselves despite the gloomy weather. We liked the Aqueduct and looked all round it from every possible angle. It is one of those structures that make you appreciate just how brilliant the Romans were. The fifteenth century professor at the University of Salamanca, Marineus, made the claim that ‘we should have no doubt that whatever memorable thing we come across in Spain is due to the Romans’ and although, six hundred years later, this can no longer possibly be true at the time it was probably a very fair assessment.