Segovia hides out in the Castilian hills of central Spain like a well-guarded secret. Hemmed in by arid plains and fortress-like walls, she has stood as proof of man’s ingenuity since the 2nd century AD. The jewel in her crown is her Aqueduct; shaped like a ship on the crest of a limestone elevation, with Alcazar at her bow and the Roman Aqueduct trailing from her stern, Segovia’s precious cargo is countless Romanesque churches, dozens of Renaissance fortress residences and palaces, and a carefully maintained atmosphere somewhere between historical theme park and quiet provincial capital.
It is this atmosphere that makes Segovia a favourite tourist destination. Indeed, most of her present-day inhabitants work in the hospitality sector, catering to the needs of its many visitors. (In fact, you can book the Segovia day trip from Madrid over on the main Viator site.)
Clik here to view.
Segovia's stellar aqueduct
Not as touristy as you might think
Keenly anticipating a few days’ serenity after the madness of Madrid, my feller and I boarded the train from Madrid Atocha, arriving an hour later at a RENFE station, some distance from the historical centre where we’d be staying. Seeing a pub across the road, I ventured over to ask directions. After half an hour of frustrated attempts at communication, during which all I managed to extract was a telephone number for a taxi company, I realized that despite its touristy reputation, Segovian locals were just as bemused by foreign visitors as Spain’s Madrid populace. Being a Sunday afternoon, and finding the bus map indecipherable, we took the coward’s way out and went the final leg to our hotel in a cab.
After a short drive through the suburbs, Segovia’s famous Aqueduct surged into view. Our driver flanked it for a while before ducking underneath one of her arches to enter the town itself – utterly charming on first glance with winding cobbled streets and meticulously kept ancient walls. We found our hotel perched on the elevated southern edge of the town, in the old Jewish quarter. Crowded by historical buildings and right in the heart of things. Perfect.
Segovia’s cuisine? Not so much
Clik here to view.
Wandering the streets of Segovia, in search of decent food!
Wandering the streets of Segovia, in search of decent food!
After the bustle of Madrid, we were looking for three things from our Segovia stay: tranquility, good food, and ancient history. Our hotel, a veritable time warp from the 1950s, looked promising in two of the three categories. But its paper thin walls and a bickering couple next door soon drove us outdoors in search of the local cuisine.
I’ve often thought an interesting business would be the production of bumper stickers for disgruntled tourists. Such as “London: the smell of overpopulation” or “Melbourne: Just like Europe but without all that pesky culture.” In Segovia’s case: “Great ruins, but the food bites.”
For those of you clucking your tongues at me for my ingratitude, thinking complaining about my inability to get a good meal in an otherwise stunning UNESCO heritage town is going too far, let me explain. My culinary requirements when I travel are simple. All I want is somewhere to buy fresh food – a market or fruit and veg stall – and the option of something cheap and cheerful such as a salad or sandwich bar of some kind. I’m not after homogenized McChainstores or anything gluten, dairy, or fat free. Just something fresh and cheap to recharge the batteries after a day of pounding the cobblestones.
We wandered past scores of Segovian restaurants with mounting dismay as we realized that their menus were practically identical and virtually indigestible. Deep-fried pork served a thousand ways. Or white bread crammed with other things (looking suspiciously like leftovers) deep fried a thousand ways.
If only we were able to locate the meals that the leftovers came from we might have been alright. But it seemed that every morsel of sustenance in this town was cornered, questioned, and tossed into a vat of boiling oil before given a fair trial. We found one paella in the entire town at a little place called Made In Spain, one of the jostling crowd of eateries encircling the Plaza Mayor. In fact, they did a damn fine sangria, too, and even agreed to open the wine we’d brought with us. But they were a rare exception. And our final dining experience in Segovia, at an unassuming pasta bar, chosen out of sheer exhaustion and a resigned assumption that pasta was nigh on impossible to blunder, was the biggest disaster of all.
We watched with horror as our miserable waiter upended plastic containers of precooked (and, I suspect, tinned) pasta onto our plates, microwaving them in plain view. This place is called Daoiz Bar on Calle del Marques del Arco. Avoid it at all costs.
On to the ruins
So we abandoned any hope of finding a good meal and concentrated on the ruins. In that category at least, Segovia is a perfect 10.
The Alcazar (or castle) looks out over the region like a beneficent monarch. Fitting given its status as royal residence from the 12th Century until the Court relocated to Madrid in the 16th Century. I advise you rent an audio guide for your stroll around this beautifully maintained historical monument for it is packed with architectural features (Romanesque, Mudejar, and Gothic mainly), and artifacts that require proper explanation to be fully appreciated. Over a dozen rooms are open to the public as well as several manicured garden patios.
Clik here to view.
Views from the Alcazar
It is even possible (and highly advisable) to climb the couple hundred crooked steps of the Tower of John II. Your efforts will be rewarded with a stunning vista of the surrounding land, particularly the famous horizontal topographical feature known to locals as la Mujer Muerta (the Dead Woman), so named because it resembles a female corpse laid out for viewing.
We couldn’t help but assume that her demise was due to either clogged arteries or starvation. (Snicker, snicker.)
The Museum of the Royal Artillery School is also located at Alcazar, as well as an 18th Century press for the minting of coins, and countless tapestries, paintings and friezes. It is a true must-see.
The Cathedral of Segovia is sandwiched between the Plaza Mayor and the old Jewish Quarter. After the Original Cathedral near the Alcazar burnt down in 1521 during the Comuneros War, construction commenced at this new site in 1525, continuing for some 250 years. Despite being officially Gothic in style, the voluminous space and soaring vault ceilings belong to a Renaissance aesthetic. Filled with works of art and other man-made evidence of Catholic fervour, it is a picturesque reminder of the Spanish religious extremism made famous by the Inquisition.
Detour through Segovia’s Jewish quarter
On that topic: after a little digging, we began to unearth a darker and rather fascinating side of Segovia’s history. Despite the existence of a so-called Jewish Quarter, evidence of synagogues and Jewish inhabitance was sparse. There was also talk of a Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of town, but information about its exact location was lacking. It turns out that in 1492, all Jews were violently expelled from the city unless they chose to stay and convert to Christianity. Synagogues were refashioned into to convents. Stately Jewish family casas were confiscated. The Jewish culture was pushed underground, surviving only as a secret form of pseudo-Judaism.
This ugly chapter of Segovia’s history is blithely ignored at the (otherwise excellent) Museum de Castile y Leon. I advise you to do a little reading up on the subject before you come as it makes afternoon strolls through La Juderia a much richer experience. I also advise you to take the trouble to find the poorly signposted Jewish cemetery. The open tombs and body-shaped plots chiseled directly into the rocks of the Pinarillo hillside of the Valle del Eresma are a chilling sight indeed.
Almost every building in Segovia is possessed with a history worth exploring and there are far too many of them to list here. And there are dozens of additional sites in the surrounding hills (convents, monasteries, and one of Europe’s oldest mints) to keep you busy too. But the gag on the darker aspects of this beautiful town’s history is a telling indicator of the local attitude that remains to this day. They’ll accept strangers into their midst and gladly take their money, but they won’t smile as they do it and they’ll be glad to see the back of you. Perhaps all that deep-fried pork is there for a reason after all.
-Maggie Rays
Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s Spain tours, including day trips from Madrid and the Avila and Segovia day tour from Madrid.