Not a Guitarist

9.16.11 When I think of Segovia I always think of the famous classical guitarist, Andre Segovia. When Claudette urged me out of bed in our Madrid hotel room little did I know what a city by that name held for us. We took the Metro to the bus station and caught the bus for Segovia.  It was only about a one hour ride with a few stops along the way.  Upon reaching the city limits of Segovia, we made our first mistake of the day; we got off the bus at the wrong stop. We should have stayed on the bus until it reached the bus station.  We lost about an hour of valuable time in this misadventure. With our limited Spanish we were able to get some directions from a lady in a newsstand.  We followed the directions for a few blocks, when I looked up a side street and exclaimed, "There it is!"  Indeed it was, in all its first century glory, the aqueduct.

Realizing it was now lunchtime, we were searching for Meson de Candido which was well known for the Spanish delicacy, cochinillo asado, roast suckling pig. But, alas, we were lost or rather disoriented in a maze of medieval streets.  However, there was a thin, white-haired, elderly gentleman who saved us.  It seems the eatery was well known, and he led us directly to it. The rotund waiter was waiting in the open door, and we were seated immediately The white linen covered tables were close together, but at this particular time of day we were the only diners. While waiting for our food I noted the black and white photograph that decorated the walls. King Jaun Carlos and Antonio Banderas were included in the famous diners. The roast suckling pig arrived promptly and was the most delicious pork we had ever tasted. The meat was succulent and the skin crisp as a potato chip. We enjoyed a desert and went out into the warm fall air to check out first century Roman engineering, the aqueduct.  We had eaten in its shadow. 

The Roman aqueduct is over 2,500 feet long and 100 feet high. The original length was nine miles  and it took water from the Rio Frio to the Roman castle, which is the Alcazar of today. It has  118 arches, and it carried water well into the late 19th century. It's built of granite blocks, some of which were the grave stones from the ancient Roman cemetery.  We walked down to the Plaza del Azoguejo and up the long staircase to the top of the aqueduct. After resting a bit, we enjoyed a breath-taking view of the city. Here we saw a sign directing us to the cathedral. Soon we were at Segovia's Plaza Mayor.  I  think plaza mayor means "main square" in Spanish, because every town has one.  Overshadowing the square is the last Gothic cathedral built in Spain.  Actually, it's not pure Gothic, because it has a dome instead of a spi re.

On the inside it has the requisite religious paintings and icons with lots of gold. There were also some vestments of the clergy and a number of illuminated manuscripts. I hate to sound jaded, but after your first dozen or so cathedrals they tend to look alike to me. One thing that I did notice was the automated candle lighter. Just drop a coin in the slot, and a little electric candle glows. Upon leaving the cathedral, I think we were there at least an hour, and giving the beggar at the gate a few euros we settled into one of the sidewalk cafes focafe con leche.

After leaving Plaza Mayor we began walking to Alcazar. That would be the castle on the edge of the city.  We walked the narrow sidewalk-less streets.  They were so narrow that we had to duck into a doorway to avoid being hit by passing cars.  We walked downhill from the cathedral to an intersection with a street that ran parallel to the city wall.  On the left was a gate through the wall to the outside so we took the street to the right.  There's sidewalk to walk on by the city wall which is only chest high here, and you could see vegetable gardens and vegetation below. 

We bought our ticket at Real Laboratorio de Chinia which is a building on the left of the castle. As we walked across what was once a drawbridge we peered into the fifty-foot  abyss below. The Alcazar sits on a rocky promontory with the river on one side and a moat on the other making it virtually impenetrable.

There are great paintings and tapestries here in these one hundred and eleven rooms, but what impressed me the most were the arms and armor. There were many suits of armor of different designs and fashion.  Claudette and I were fascinated by the boy-sized suits.  The medieval kings would take the young princes into battle even at the age of twelve.  The history of cannon was well represented in the armory and the Museum of Artillery. This was once the site of the Royal Artillery School. I could have stayed much longer with the big guns but Claudette, reminded that it would soon be time for the last bus to Madrid. 

I never heard any guitar music while we were there.

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