Cathedrals, Castles, Quasimodo--Oh My!

While Therese and I were in Madrid we took a day trip via bus to Segovia, which may be one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. 

The best thing about going by bus is the scenery, and how long it stays beside you.  The Guadarrama mountains accompanied us for the whole trip.

We arrived around noon and, instead of craving the traditional Segovian fare, we opted for--cue shame--hamburgers.  They were *special* hamburgers (literally, hamburguesas especiales), and we ate them with the Cidrería's homemade cider Sangria, but still :P

The first thing we saw in town was this beautiful church, about which we know nothing except that it was beautiful.  That's a good enough reason to love something sometimes, isn't it?

Then we stumbled upon what Segovia is famous for: its Roman ruins, specifically the aqueducts.  Dating from the end of the 1st century, they're so remarkably complete and the modern town has grown up to integrate them so seamlessly, they almost seem like part of the landscape, like another mountain range they had to build around in the planning of the city. 

Pretty incredible. 

They had a tourist route planned out in the city that took us through the Jewish district, past several churches, past the cathedral, around the "peninsula" where the castle sits, and back around to the bus station. 

After we traversed the staircase next to the aqueducts, this is the view we were rewarded with. 

I fell in love with the architecture--every single building had its own unique pattern pressed into the concrete, and they were all painted in the warm colors that a Mediterranean climate evokes.  It was really incredible!

Sometimes we had the impression of being in Morocco instead of Spain.  Love this courtyard :)

We found ourselves in a plaza full of people and restaurants with tables on terraces, all facing this incredible feat of architecture: the Segovia cathedral.

This is the last Gothic cathedral built in Spain

and the nave is 33 meters high!  I don't know if I've ever felt so small in my life.

Past the cathedral, we wound through back streets, ogling architecture and, in my case, making a fool of myself.  What's that, you want to hear how I made a fool of myself?!   Well, I guess...

So, Therese and I were walking down a narrow back street and a car pulled onto the street we were on.  We ducked into an alcove to avoid getting hit by the car, and in that moment, I--thinking it would be funny--pretended to bang on the door and yelled, "Sanctuary!  Sanctuary!" like in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  (Therese didn't even laugh!  That's when I knew I was in trouble...) Then the car stopped...and a woman got out...and she opened the door I had just been banging on.  Then she turned to me and asked, "What do you want?"  :|  Mildly embarrassing, mostly because I was stumbling over so many Spanish words trying to explain to her, "I was just pretending that I was Quasimodo!!" and she was just waiting to see why I was assaulting her door.  Meh.

The narrow side streets of Segovia

The best part of her door was the knocker.  Tell me what YOU see....

 We finally reached the Alcazar de Segovia (castle).  It was one of the inspirations for Disney's Cinderella's castle and was built sometime in the 11th or 12th century. 

Even the view of the city from the castle was phenomenal

We made our way back around to the aqueducts and took more pictures of the magnificent view laid out before us. 

We also came across this little guy. 

What I want to know is, does a pig this happy taste better?

The bus took us back to Madrid, we went back to our marvelous hosts' house, packed up our things and commenced the long voyage back home...with a mild suntan, sore feet, about a million pictures and some great memories :)