Segovia is easily missed on a tour of Spain. Although an easy day trip from Madrid, it gets less visitors than Toledo, and those rushing between Salamanca and the capital are often deterred by the slight detour. Which is a shame, as this sleepy town is home to some of the best architecture that central Spain has to offer.
We arrived on a bus from Salamanca, having changed buses in a deserted village along the way. Segovia greeted us with a freshness that we hadn’t felt in Salamanca and that we certainly missed in Madrid. It’s altitude and surrounding mountains mean that the temperatures do not reach the unbearable highs of much of the country.
The town is a maze of old streets, and the type of place where it’s best to leave a map at the hotel and just wander. The central fortress is probably where most visitors go, and we whiled away a couple of hours exploring this palace. I especially remember enjoying the views of the vast surrounding countryside with snowy mountains as a backdrop.
Segovia’s aqueduct, its most photographed feature, spans a full kilometre and is 100ft tall at its tallest point. We walked along the length of this hugely impressive Roman structure and enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon seeing it from every angle possible.
We were here in 1997, and it was noticeable that in the central region of Spain (we stopped in Burgos, Leon, Salamanca and here) we rarely saw English spoken; either by visiting tourists or by local people to us. It was great to be forced into using and improving our Spanish, and it was quite a culture shock when we arrived in Madrid and were greeted in English wherever we went.
