Madrid Day 3 – Segovia, Reina Sofia

10/10/2015

Madrid Atocha train station

Today’s day trip took us to Segovia Alcazar (“Alcazar” means “castle” or “royal palace” in Spanish. It just sounds a lot cooler in Spanish than English, doesn’t it?), which served as the inspiration to Disney’s Cinderella. From the front of the castle, it doesn’t look much like the iconic Cinderella castle—you have to go to the back or a side view (preferably across the desert valley) to see the whole breathtaking view. It used to be a fortress in Roman times, but was renovated to become the favorite residence of the kings and queens of Castile.

Segovia Alcazar

The train ticket prices vary based on what time you want to leave and return, and can vary up to 10 euro/person. For 4 people, that’s a potential difference of 80 euros. Yikes! It’s because this is the high speed Renfe, which shoots from Madrid Chamartin to Segovia AV in half an hour.

The time we wanted was already sold out, so pre-book, people! We booked two days ago, the day we arrived in Madrid, but we should’ve booked a whole lot sooner. The system assigned our seats in one row all together, which was super nice.

To get to Madrid Chamartin from the main train station Atocha, you have to buy Renfe Cercanias tickets the day of (a nominal 1.70 euro each way). It’s like their metro system, but using trains. Pretty much every single platform will take you to Chamartin because these two are the biggest hubs in Madrid—so you just look at the screen and jump on the next available train.

From Chamartin, you go up two floors to the high speed trains. There’s a ticket counter where an employee scans your ticket and you have to go through security. Since the seats are preassigned, no need to rush there to grab good seats. The train is super clean and looks high class. Segovia’s the next stop, if half hour away. The train can get up to 240-ish km/hour (they have a screen to show you how fast they’re going and how long it takes to the next stop). 

Right after you get off the train, make a speedy exit to catch Bus 11 to the historic center of Segovia. The bus times the train arrivals, so there’s usually a bus or two waiting at the bus stop right across the street from the train station to transport daytrippers. Only problem is, if you walk too slow and there’s a lot of people (which there will be), you might not get on that bus and will have to wait for the next one to come around...twenty minutes later. And if you go on a weekend, it’s more like one bus every hour. So have fun waiting if you’re a slow ass walker/if you can’t be arsed enough to walk faster.

The bus drops you off at the Roman Aqueducts (Aqueducto in Spanish), a breathtaking monument of engineering built when the Romans occupied this region centuries ago. We wanted to go to the Pont du Gard aqueduct in southern France last year, but couldn’t fit it into our schedule, so it’s awesome we finally get to see one in person this year. 

There are black holes all over the stones of this aqueduct. There’s a local legend of a beautiful woman working as a water carrier in Segovia, carrying water all the way up the hills. The devil saw her and wanted to win her soul (not her heart haha). He said, “If I can make water come to the city center by dawn, then you will sell me your soul.” He spent all night building the aqueduct, and you can see his fingerprints (the black marks) as he was laying the stones. But by the break of dawn, he came up one stone short. The woman got to keep her soul as a result. Holy water was sprinkled on the aqueduct, and the townspeople forgave her sin of making a pact with the devil.  

A gorgeous if long staircase behind and to the right of the aqueduct will lead you up to the city center. Plenty of signs make it easy to get to the castle, though there’s a tourist information office with free maps right behind the aqueduct if you feel more comfortable with a map in hand.

Back in Roman times, lead was very expensive, so building lead pipes to transport water was too cost prohibitive. Instead, they’d find one body of water, then build these giant aqueducts to connect one hill to another, bridging these valleys so to transport water over long distances. To me, it seems like constructing these gigantic aqueducts is more expensive than just ponying up money for lead. Until you consider the Romans probably used free slave labor to build them. 

As you walk to the castle, you’ll pass the Segovia Cathedral, which is a pretty grand-looking building that reminds Angel of the Mormon church, and me of the Emerald City. It’s situated in the Plaza Mayor where there’s a lot of cute cafes overlooking the square. Since it’s a walk uphill to the Cathedral, you get to walk downhill to the castle. Yay! Hate hiking up.

Segovia Cathedral

We ate croissant sandwiches that Angel had put together this morning for our journey, stuffed with jamon Serrano, chorizo slices, different cheeses. Delish!

There’s a green iron-wrought gate that denotes you’re at the castle, reminiscent of UC Berkeley’s iconic gate. Trees cover the view of the castle however, so you have to keep walking…

...until finally the autumn leaves part and you get this enchanting view:

The ticket office is housed in the former Chemistry House, which the Spanish government used to use to train their military in chemistry. They acknowledged the importance of science in battle, so used this as an elite research lab of sorts to develop advanced chemical warfare. The modern-day hot air balloon was taken from conceptualization to realization here.

 We bought the combo ticket of the castle proper (5 euros) and the tower (2 euros), although we “forgot” to mention this to the parentals. They wouldn’t want to go into the tower otherwise. More on this later haha. The audioguide is 3 euros each, but you have to deposit 5 euros in cash per audioguide. You can pay for the admission and audioguide with credit card, but the deposit you must pay in cash.

The courtyard you first enter through is made entirely of granite, displaying the wealth of Castilian kings. It’s all grey now and lackluster. In fact, it looks like ordinary rock. But hundreds of years ago, before the weather and storms and wind got to it, I imagine it must’ve looked something grand, all polished and sparkling.

Displays of knights’ gear for jousting, not battle:

Throne Room:

There’s a stained glass window depicting Henry II murdering King Peter I (Peter the Cruel or Just—depending on who you’re talking to), his half-brother, to claim the throne during the Castilian Civil War in the 1300s. Their father had just died and Peter ascended the throne. He was forced by his mother to marry his first wife but deserted his new bride soon after to marry another woman. Rumors had it that he had his first wife murdered, either by poison or crossbow. He deserted his second wife as well. He had his father’s mistress, Eleanor, executed for trying to usurp his power. 

Eleanor’s children with the late king were illegitimate, including their son, Henry II. That didn’t stop the bastard (in this case, literally) from trying to gain the throne. He raised an army of mercenaries and after finally succeeding in killing his half-brother by laying out a trap for Peter to walk into, Henry rewarded his army of mercenaries with many lands and grants, earning him the title “el de las Mercedes.”

A chair made to be fashioned onto horseback, for those who want a truly comfortable ride NOT astride a saddle:

Elaborate tapestries hang in this royal bedroom, where the bedsheets and blanket are brocaded with gold and red thread in the pattern of the royal shield. These tapestries are not considered tapestries however, in the traditional sense, because the scenes depicted are painted on, not woven together. Say what??? I so did not know you could paint a tapestry! I pointed out the beautiful bedlinen to Angel, marveling how many manhours must’ve gone toward weaving such intricate patterns, to which she responded: “They’re probably painted on too.”

The rope room:

Legend has it King Alfonso X said something blasphemous to a monk, and that very night, a storm broke out, causing much of the castle to cave in. To repent, Alfonso apologized to the monk and built the rope room to convey how sorry he was.

A fire broke out in the queen’s bedchamber in the mid-1800s, destroying most of the ceilings in the castle and many of the paintings. It started in this room:

Look how small the queen’s room is!

Luckily, since Spanish craftsmen use templates to make ceilings, the same ceiling can be found in other buildings in Spain. So they went around to different historic sites and churches, finding the ones that best-matched Segovia’s, and basically removed those ceilings to replace the ones Segovia had lost. First painted tapestries, now templated ceilings? Now that’s just lazy!

The Hall of Kings has an amazing gilded frieze that depicts all the medieval monarchs of Spain:

A visiting Czech ambassador commented that the day a Spanish king ascends the throne, he starts hoarding gold in preparation to make his statue to add to this frieze.

Philip II married his niece, Anne of Austria, in this room. She was his fourth wife and bore him five children, only one of which survived into adulthood, his heir, Philip III. For a man who often came across as cold and distant (learned from his father), their marriage was a happy one and she loved his daughters from a previous marriage as if they were her own, including Isabella Clara Eugenia, Philip’s favorite child. As we saw yesterday at El Escorial, he loved to play with his children.

There’s a portrait of Philip II in the Throne Room, where you can see his pronounced lower jaw (otherwise known as the “Hapsburg jaw”). This deformity was a direct result of too many generations of inbreeding, a trait his father, Charles V, also had. It caused many health problems for Charles, for he couldn’t chew properly and suffered indigestion as a result. 

The floorplan of the castle is rather unique in that it looks like the bow of a ship. When you emerge to the bow, you can see where Disney got the inspiration for Cinderella from. 

The mountain in the far distance resembles a sleeping woman, does it not?

There’s also a well:

The armory had a crossbow on display that is rather unique in that it’s made of steel, so you have to have incredible strength to pull it. It can pierce through a steel helmet!

We entered into a charming courtyard where you can see Charles V’s two-headed eagle emblem. There were tourists from China posing next to a pretty tree in some rather strange poses. Even the men were getting in on the action! After they left, I attempted to strike the same poses, though I must say I failed miserably. Angel and I were laughing so hard! I can only conclude that they must’ve practiced a lot at home in order to strike those poses so fast.  

 At the end of the audioguide tour is the tower, and since we purchased the combo ticket, we made the parentals go up with us. The tower is comprised of 152 steps, though it’s really only 100 from the tower base to the top. The other 52 is to get to the tower base. Since the climb is divided, it’s really not all that bad.

However, the stairs up the tower are extremely steep AND it’s two-way traffic! People climbing up are relegated right, and people going down are to the left. Since it’s a winding staircase, the left side is a whole heck of a lot wider than the right side—who was the genius behind this? People climbing up can only place half a foot on each step because the depth is so tiny!

Halfway up the tower is the prison. The last prisoner to be kept here was a general in the 1930s.

At the top, you get a clear view of Segovia Cathedral:

Our visit at Segovia Castle took 2.5 hours, and since it was a bit early to head toward the bus stop, we took our time wandering along the narrow cobblestoned pathways. There are so many tourists here, it’s astounding. Here I thought it was low season, and that nobody’s ever heard of Segovia. Turns out, there’s boatloads of tourists from China and Korea here. On top of that, it’s Saturday, so a lot of Spanish families are here as well. Think of it like a more educational Disneyland for Spaniards.

Segovia has a dish called the Cochinillo Asado, otherwise known as “suckling pig.” It’s a 21-day piglet nursed only with mother’s milk and nothing else. This has been a Segovian specialty since the Romans conquered the city. 

Since the mid-twentieth century, Segovian restaurants have been using this dish to promote themselves to tourists. I’d say it worked. Very successfully. Most restaurants serving this dish is packed full of people. Since we’re only here once, we decided to buy one to-go (Spaniards will look at you funny if you say “to go.” Gotta say “takeaway.”) at Meson Don Jimeno restaurant. We picked this restaurant because it was on the way back to the bus stop, the restaurant was packed, and it has a Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor.

I gotta say, a baby piglet really tastes more delicious than an adult pig. They gave us the butt portion of the piglet (one portion, or “raciones,” is 15.90 euros). It was so tender, it practically fell off the bone! It actually has a creamy, milky flavor to it. Even the bones were tender, so much so that you can chew on it.

A popular pastry shop sells a Segovian specialty of sponge cake layered with custard, covered in a thin layer of marzipan:

Delicious!

We saw a Casa and Angel got all excited…before we neared it and found out it was closed. Darn.

We passed by a Carrefour Express and went in for a quick peak. They had a Carrefour dark chocolate bar that was super cheap (0.95 euro) so we decided to buy a few to try. The chocolate was freakin’ tasty! I regret not buying more! Don’t knock Carrefour chocolate; this is Godiva-caliber, folks. 

There was a tiny little area next to a fancy historical building that had a weather-worn sign painted on the side of the building. It says you can’t park your carriage here or you’ll be fined 5 pesetas:

Carriage!

We really wished we had more time in Segovia (ended up waiting for the bus, then the train, collectively for 2 hours! They may time the bus with train arrivals, but they don’t give a shit about departures from the city center to train station). It’s a pretty romantic place and I suspect a lot of honeymooners are here. There’s a lot of couples and families walking around, exploring the quaint town. You can get lost in the maze of cobblestone streets, but that’s the whole point, isn’t it? To relax and explore at leisure. That is, unless you’re us.

The high-speed train was delayed, so by the time we got back to Atocha, it was 7:30pm. I thought the Reina Sofia closed at 8pm, and it’s free admission from 6-8pm. So I ran over there (it’s across the street from Atocha, though the huge roundabout makes it a pain in the ass to get to) while my parents and Angel went back to the apartment. I really wanted to see Picasso’s Guernica.

Out of all the paintings in the three-floor museum, the Guernica is the only one you can’t take a picture of. Picasso was commissioned to paint something to buoy the Spanish government and citizens during the civil war. Something that spoke against fascism and propagandized the government. Picasso languished for six months, not painting a single thing because he couldn’t find the inspiration. Then, under General Franco’s orders, the German army bombed the civilian city of Guernica, killing many women and children. Picasso found his inspiration and immediately set out to do the painting. He completed it a month later. There’s something to be said about inspiration, isn’t there? The style of his painting went against the norms of artistry, and portrayed the hideous and horrified expressions of women dying from the bombing. The lightbulb symbolizes wisdom, replacing the outdated candlelight in favor of modernism. The horse, bull and women.

I wandered around the second story, taking in the Picassos and Dalis. By that time, it was 8:20pm, and I realized the museum wasn’t closing. I thought they’d have herded us out promptly at 7:55pm, like what Prado did to us yesterday. It’s no wonder I lost track of time; they weren’t herding us out! I rushed back home, as I said I’d be back by 8:30pm for dinner. Only to realize I was locked out of the building because I’d given the keys to Angel and reception closes at 8pm on a weekend. Damn it. There was an intercom, though nobody responded, so I started panicking that I’d be stuck outside the whole night. Thank God a girl opened the door on her way out, so I could get in! 

For dinner, Angel made scrambled egg in the microwave with melted Iberico cheese, slices of chorizo and arugula:

Baked puff pastry with langoustine and seafood from Carrefour:

Mushroom risotto, also from Carrefour:

Dad loved this, as did we all. It was super creamy and the mushroom flavor was pleasant but not overpowering. Carrefour is two for two, so far!

Custard tart:

We found it surprising that most people in Madrid cannot speak English. You’d think Lisbon or Seville might have a language barrier, but out of all cities, a metropolis as big as Madrid! Besides the hotel reception and the police policing the train station (toting rifles, no less!), we’ve yet to encounter one person who can properly speak English. We get by hand gestures, though it does make the going a whole lot slower. And confusing. Even some of the ticket machines don’t have English. 

Side note: so far, everywhere we’ve gone in Spain, the restrooms are free. Train stations, department stores, McDonald’s. That’s awesome.