Segovia - A Palace and A Fortress and a Roman Aquaduct

El escorial * Alcazar * Roman Aquaduct

14,145 steps

We have been on the move for a solid week and staying up late and it showed this morning.  Gratefully we are in a lazy tourist town an hour outside of Madrid where people come to escape for the weekend (like a Park City).  The air is cool up here and the streets are quiet.

We drove to El Escorial today, about an hour from Segovia.  El Escorial is a Spanish Palace built by Phillip II in the late 1500s.  It is also the burial place of all the Kings since then, their queen, and all the children who died before age 7.  It's a big, boxy castle, with square everything - nothing like the French castles (or chateaus) of the same era.  The inside felt a bit like a prison or fortress.  We saw some El Greco paintings - apparently Phillip II commissioned El Greco's first painting in Spain, but El Greco wasn't appreciated here so he moved on to Toledo.  

We had a picnic in the shade just outside the Palace before heading home.  Emma wasn't feeling well so Emma and I got dropped off at our apartment while everyone else went to another Fortress, Alcazar that is just minutes from our Apartment in Segovia.  (Not only is there a fortress down the street, our apartment is right across the street from the really cool church in Segovia.  After we leave each location, we rank our accommodations - we've placed this one 2nd only to Normandy.)

Stewart made us an awesome missionary dinner tonight; beans, turkey, and a salad.  He's a funny kid that has always enjoyed cooking and Spain was a perfect place to grow that talent since most of the time he had to cook for himself - not very many dinner appointments.

After dinner we walked down to a Roman Aqueduct built during the end of the 1st century that is still amazingly in tact.  Until the late 1800s it provided water for the city of Segovia.  We also enjoyed the unique architecture of the city that was influenced by the Moors - very different from what we have seen so far.   (I'm really missing my Italian architecture - when I saw the aqueduct, I thought I was back home in Italy).

El escorial

Alcazar

enjoying Segovia

Roman aquaduct