A city "mas chulo que un ocho"

...or "chuler then an eight" as my spanglish would sound. This is a spanish expression that we have tried to figure out yesterday after a round of beers. Why would something be more beautiful then an eight? What s so cool about 8 anyways? But let s start with the beginning
 

    Our destination for yesterday, leaving at a very non-spanish time from Valladolid

 

was

    A city that has marvelously stood through the ages, with its famous Aqueduct built somewhere in the first century. This huge construction that carries water for over 6 kilometers, from the city to the palace is not held together by cement. Huge blocks of stone in equilibrium. One must definitely bow to the art of engineering those people had.

 

 

 

     Since it is not possible to walk on it, as some of us would have wanted :)) we wondered a bit on staircases and lonely streets up to the cathedral, which is ofcours situated in Plaza Mayor :D

 

    The cathedral is a late gothic work of art. The entrance is payant, but it s all worthy.

 

    We walked then through the Juderia, the Segovian ghetto for a lot of time. It seems that every people had a period when it felt the need to confine jews. For fear of what? This quarters are surrounded by the famous wall of Segovia, which tells the tale of the many arabian attacks

    The wall goes all the way up to the Alcazar. Now, apparently this is another this all big cities have. We have still to figure out on Monday the difference between an alcazar, a castillo and a palacio :). All in all it used to be the residence of the spanish kings until the 18th century, when it served as a prison. The architecture is quite severe and the decoration tasteful. It must have probably been a summer residence, because it has no heating system. The sturdy rocks that served for construction keep a pleasant atmosphere inside - beats all the air conditioning in the world. From the tallest tower one (152 stairs up on a "snail"  staircase) one has a beautiful view of the city. 

 

 

 

    The trip continued with lunch:D.  The traditional dish of Segovia is the "toston", which is basicaly a 2 months old piglet, grilled and served entire. We, the girls considered this too cruel and hence settled  for a portion of judillones, some incredibly big beans (also speciality of the region), with their tomato salsa. A fake toston, just to get an idea why we couldn t go for that (event though the guys described in detail the fine taste and the crunchy feeling):

 

 

     The day continued in La Granja (the farm), a tiny village next to Segovia, one of the many royal residences.

 

    The palace is quite small, but its gardens are fabulous. The fountains decorated with characters from the greek mithology (kind of weird to see in such a catholic country) chill the summer air after a very well defined schedule. We managed to see just one of them in action. Ofcourse, we were on the wrong side (it didn t cross our minds that if all the other people are sitting on the opposite side of us, there must be something fishy) and hence we got a well deserved shower from Diana's hunting horn

 

    And I went looking for trouble again :), photoproof of this existing from many sources:

 

    Our walk in the gardens continued (apparently they are supposed to be a copy of the ones of Versailles,  and they have a maze and all the gear, like Schonbrunn and all the rest) until sunset, when we got back to Segovia, to immerse a bit in the night life there.

    The stories are not to be posted on a public blog. It involved some trashy vocabulary lessons for me - though I know it wouldn t exactly have been necessary :)

    The point is that I liked Segovia better the Salamanca, altough both have a special charm, a special something , where ocre and green and blue colide. Where the sun shines on orange/grey streets, where the people are friendly and tapas are served with any small beer that you order, where...welll....hay que joderse for every little thing you see :D.