Week 4 – Saturday 26th July – Segovia

I got into trouble this morning. Anne called out to me from the shower, so I dutifully went to find out what assistance she required. “Can you pass me a face flannel please”. This sort of question always gets me, it’s a bit like asking for a desert spoon and not a tablespoon – Que. Anyway, I had a look around the hotel bathroom and their were a range of towels for me to choose from. There were the showering ones, so not them, some smaller ones – hand towels I thought, and some small ones hanging on a rail in the far corner. “That must be them”, I thought, so grabbed one and passed it to her. Anne stared at me disbelievingly and didn’t extend her hand to take the “face flannel”, so I sort of shook it at her – you know, take it. “There’s a reason there hanging beside the bidet, you know” Oops.

Actually, the morning didn’t get off to a great start. We got a text from Mum and Dad at 6am to say that their cruise ship was docking in Nice at 8am at the end of the cruise, so they were up early to get ready to disembark. You might have seen it on CNN if you were watching, it was obviously news worthy. Then at 8am, the alarm clock that had been silent the previous morning decided to burst into life to get us into the day. The towel incident happened after we got up at 9:30.

Anne has just reminded me about breakfast. The waiter was a real treat. He was obliging, without being friendly and effective without being efficient. Everything we asked (which wasn’t much) could be done, but it seemed to pain him that we were there. Anyway, while we were munching our way through breakfast, it was obvious that we were late, as there were several tables with dirty dishes on them. The waiter very carefully and meticulously cleared the tables, stacking plates and cups on his hands and wrists and arranging things neatly to maximise how much he could carry. All this was done with the usual waiters grace, and once he had loaded himself up, he would glide out of the restaurant to the kitchen. It seemed that as soon as he passed through the doors into the kitchen there was some miraculous transformation and Jeeves became the belligerent kitchen hand as there was an almighty crash as all the dishes were dumped unceremoniously into the sink. This would have been OK if it happened once, but it was a regular occurrence over the entire time we were in the dining room.

Today we were sightseeing locally and the transport was all on foot. First stop was the Alcazar, which is a magnificent building and grounds at the foot of the town. We’d driven past in on our way into town two days ago, but such is the abundance of sights to see in Segovia, we hadn’t been back to it since. The pictures on Flickr show the building, which was built in the 15th century, gutted by fire and fully restored in the 19th century and now is owned by a trust and houses Spain (and one of Europe’s) top military academies.

Again we had an audio guide, which gave us just enough information. Impressive things about the Alcazar (which is an Arabic word for Royal Palace) were the reconstructed armour in the first few rooms, the stained glass windows, the ceilings in all the rooms. (I’ve put up some photos to show you) and the tower, with its 152 steps.

After the Alcazar, we went for a walk round the town on the way to the aqueduct, which we were going to walk from one end to the other. Now that we have been here a couple of days, we realize what the local cuisine is like. Walking past the restaurants we checked out what people were eating, and it was all pork, which in one extreme case was a whole baby piggy, head and all – a bit gross really, unless its your custom I suppose.

One thing I’ve noticed over the last two days is the babies have pierced ears and I mean tiny babies – new borns. Again, I guess this is a custom thing. Some societies circumcise their baby boys, so why shouldn’t the girls get pierced ears. Besides which, given that Spanish woman seem to exit the womb with matching shoes, belts, necklaces and earrings, having pierced ears is probably as natural as cutting the umbilical chord. (Note: As I write this at 11:30 at night, the most popular drink being served is warmed water to new mothers, so that they can formula feed their babies. The children are still playing soccer in the pavilion in the centre of the square. The teenagers were playing tag, but they seem to have left, so I’m not sure what that lead to. Grand parents are sitting on the chairs in the centre of the square talking and some people have just arrived for dinner. This is what we love about Europe.

Our time in Segovia is nearly over, we head to Toledo tomorrow morning. Segovia is a very ‘local’ town. The receptionist at the hotel speaks English, but nobody else does and they speak Spanish to us at 100mph and give us funny looks when we look gormlessly back at them. They watch us going over the menu with our phrase book (this is the first town to have no English menus), but are appreciative of our attempts at Spanish when we have finally interpreted what we would like and are ready to order.