Ávila and Segovia

Paseo de Castellano

We visited two UNESCO World Heritage Sites on Sunday. Both are located north of Madrid and are about an hour drive from the city center. We walked to the tour office from our hotel to the center which was about an hour itself. There's a convenient promenade along the main street running north to south to get to Sol. It was drizzly and foggy and it was a bit eerie since it was pretty silent and lonely at 8:00 am on a Sunday.

Ávila

The first city we visited on our tour was Ávila, which is a city within intact medieval walls built from the 9th through 14th century. It was pretty amazing to be honest with you since the only thing that can compare with it in the New World are the Pre-Columbian intact sites such as Tikal or Palenque in my opinion. The modern city is located further outside the walls, but the older part is still a living city with homes, shops, and restaurants. Just outside of each of the nine huge gates, are churches or basílicas, which we visited only one. Within the walls is a beautiful Gothic cathedral that is integrated as part of the defensive wall during the 12th century. Ávila is also known for being the birthplace of St. Teresa who was a nun who revolutionized the church. How? Since she was promised to become a nun by her wealthy father trying to prove his conversion to Christianity (he was a Jew when Isabella I proclaimed Spain as a Catholic country), she made the best of it and tried to reform the church. How, again? By making sure all nuns learned how to read and write. Girlfriend then hit the road and opened 16 additional convents after opening her first in Ávila in 1562. And when I say hit the road, she literally hit the road as she walked to each and every single location by foot. The sole of her sandal is in the museum as well as her right ring finger. Yes, her complete ring finger with rotting flesh and all. If you ain't Catholic, you gotta know that they LOVE their saints. Every bit of 'em. We then hit the road, by bus of course, to the next stop Segovia.

Roman Aqueduct

Segovia Cathedral

We had lunch in Segovia as part of the tour. I admit I was a bit disappointed as it was mediocre at best. It was supposed to be the famous suckling pig of Segovia, but was certainly lacking in taste. Well, the city itself made up for it as it had amazing architecture. The first being the Roman aqueducts that can be seen within the "newer" part of the city. Where they are exposed used to be the country side as the old city of Segovia was located up further in the mountains. They are about 2000 years old. Yes, 2000 years old and no mortar was used. The stones are just stacked one on top of the other. And what we see is only about 10 percent of the entire aqueduct, which is 15 km. That's about 9 miles people! The rest is underground. It really is an engineering feat and pretty incredible when you stand right underneath it. Besides the aqueduct, Segovia has a beautiful Gothic cathedral and the Alcazar, or castle of Segovia. We were not allowed to take pictures in the cathedral but believe me it was beautiful. The detail is just astounding. We moved onto a bonofide medieval castle. My first actually so I got to see a real moat.

My girls Patience and Babi will know why that's important to me. As a former reader of trashy historic romance novels it really put things in perspective. I could put an image to all the rooms and details these books would describe, and realize the importance of tapestries. They were used to help block the drafts that came in when it was cold. But walking around in there, I can tell you those suckers don't work. At least they didn't seem to while I was in there. Overall, the trip was fantastic and my head full of information that I will immediately forget. There is just so much history and detail and drama with all of the architecture of the two cities that my blog in no way can do it justice. But at least I can highlight what I thought was interesting for you to try and appreciate. Truth is we could have easily stayed two days in both cities to explore them even further. But the clock is ticking down and my week seems like it's almost up. Tomorrow is Toledo.