A semester in Espana: Segovia on Sunday

On Sunday I went to Segovia! Segovia is the city of the aqueducts. We left on the bus at 9 am and it was about a 2-hour drive. When we arrive, the first thing we saw this statue of a man holding a plate above what looked like four piglets. It was quite strange. Our tour guide explained that Segovia is known for its food, most specifically lamb and suckling pig, as shown in this statue. The statue is of Candido, a chef famous for his suckling pig, which was so succulent he would slice it with a plate instead of knife. There is a famous restaurant in Segovia named after him and it is also one of the most famous restaurants in Spain. I would have loved to go there but the starting price is supposed to be around 30 Euros, which is not within my dwindling college budget.

After we saw that statue we were free to go get food because our tour guide said we would not eat lunch until pretty late in the day. I went to a little café and got churros con chocolate. It was my first churros with chocolate experience in Spain and it was really good. The churros are different here, they aren’t coated in cinnamon sugar so they aren’t as sweet but they are still sweet enough and slightly crunchy. I really liked them. I thought they were better than U.S. churros because all of that cinnamon sugar disgusts me.

After a quick breakfast we went inside a church. It was very pretty but it reminded me a lot of the church in Toledo. Though they are all very old and interesting, after a while they all start to look the same.

After that we traveled down to the aqueducts, Segovia’s main attraction. They were amazing. Just mesmerizing. The guide said that the aqueducts were built before Christ was even born, so they are over 2000 years old! They are huge and built without any cement or any other material holding them together and the guide said that they would still be functional today, if necessary.

We walked around a lot to just take pictures of the aqueducts and then we climbed up this giant hill and I thought I was going to die. Every time I go on these trips there is extensive climbing involved. This climb was worth it for the view though. It was gorgeous. Segovia is a lovely city. I think I liked it more than Toledo.

After that climb he wanted all of us to climb down, basically a mountain, for an unknown reason. I later found out it was just solely for picture taking purposes. Looking at the hike down, that would have been hard for an average person, I told the student ambassadors that I couldn’t climb down it and that my friend’s Tyler and Samantha were going to stay with me. The one ambassador girl was super rude and was going to make me climb down the mountain anyway just because she said we “had to stay with the group” even though on the other trips we did not and this was a very legitimate reason to leave the group. With some help for my friends, we finally got her okay but that really pissed me off. They are never really accommodating to me on those SLU day trips and I’m very glad they are over now. The student ambassadors and tour guides have been rude on every one of the trips that I have been on.

So anyways, Tyler and Samantha and I were all very happy to not have to climb down the mountain and we decided we were wanted to go get a tour of the castle, also known as Alcazar. It was 3 Euros or something so we got tickets and went in. Besides the aqueducts it was definitely the highlight of the trip. This castle is also one of the inspirations for Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World! I don’t know why It wasn’t part of our tour. Walking into the castle was like going back in time to the medieval period and they did a wonderful job preserving the rooms and making it a museum but also making it look like people still lived there. There were also tons of windows that had amazing views of the scenery of Segovia and courtyards.

When we were done with that we go lunch at a place and then met up again with the group to see a cathedral. By this time everyone was exhausted because it was midday, very hot, and many people had been on the day trip yesterday and were just drained. In the cathedral I basically just sat on a church bench the whole time. I didn’t take any pictures because it looked exactly liked Toledo’s cathedral but less impressive.

After too long of a day we finally got back on the bus. I’m glad I went on the trip but I also felt like all of the students on it would agree it was much too long. When I got home I took a nap because that night I was going out for my 21^st birthday!!