Woke up early to transition from Seville to Segovia. Our journey consisted of a taxi, train, taxi, train, taxi to get to our hotel in Segovia. And our first train was at 7:45 am. Everything went smoothly except for one, almost crucial, error at the second train station in Madrid. We misheard the announcement for where the train was to board for Segovia and ended up on the wrong platform. A train pulled up to load and folks got on, but the train looked different than our other trains, the train cars weren’t numbered, and it looked like people were going to be standing up on the trip. It was headed in the right direction, but looked more like a subway. To board or not to board? A very important decision! We didn’t get on and thought we had missed our train. So we went back into the terminal and checked the information board. We had gone to the wrong platform and almost boarded the wrong train! We found the correct platform number and hurried to make it in time. It was almost an “Amazing Race” critical error that could have cost us this leg of the competition, (and possibly, a million dollars!)
Inside view of the AVE, high speed train
Once in Segovia, we walked through a twisted maze of streets, occasionally having to step into a doorway to avoid passing traffic, to visit the Alcazar (castle) of Segovia. The Alcazar was built during the Middle Ages on the site of the original Roman military camp. It later became a prison and, then, a Royal Artillery School until it burned in 1862. Today it has been restored to its former glory and is used, mostly, as a museum. One of the most interesting facts we noticed about the castle is that people were a lot shorter during the Middle Ages. The doors, passageways, suits of armor,etc were all very tiny. Even Keena felt tall! After touring the Alcazar, we wandered back to the other end of Segovia to visit the Roman Aqueduct. The aqueduct, which is more than 2000 years old, is an engineering marvel. It is 2500 feet long (originally it was 9 miles long), 100 feet high with 118 arches made from 20,000 granite blocks without mortar. The aqueduct supplied water for the Roman military camp. It was actually still used until the late 1800’s.
Alcazar of Segovia – One of the favorite residences of monarchs of Castile.
The doors are sized just for Keena
View of a church through the windows of the alcazar
The gardens as seen from the castle
Artillery and weaponry from the period
The Cathedral of Segovia (we elected not to tour this one)
Lovely window boxes along the way
Roman Aqueduct – For scale find Keena at the bottom of one of the pillars.
Brad at the acqueduct