On the fourth day of our two week journey through Spain we left our homebase in Madrid to explore two cities in the region of Castilla y León. The full-day tour left Madrid before 9:00 A.M. and took up to both Ávila and Segovia, with guided, walking history tours in both cities from our tour guide, Paco. The weather forecast sounded horrible, calling for frequent heavy rain showers. We got lucky, though, and dodged only a few light rain showers with overcast skies most of the day.
Ávila
We traveled a little over an hour to our first stop, the medieval city of Ávila. At over 3,500 feet above sea level, Ávila is one of Spain’s highest cities and is its highest provincial capital. Its height is so important to its history that it, along with Europe’s most well-preserved medieval city walls, made the city quite difficult to conquer. We first admited the city from a lookout point and then continued in to the city’s visitor’s center. The city walls are enormous and quite impressive to see up close. Just inside the walls is a cathedral, entrance to which our tour did not include. Instead, we toured the Basílica de San Vicente, a Romanesque church which houses a popular carved tomb that tells the story of the death of St. Vincent. We continued through Ávila and heard many stories about St. Teresa de Ávila, an important reformer of the Catholic Church along with her order, the Barefoot Carmelites. We even toured the Convento de Santa Teresa which was built at the location of her home in Ávila and houses relics such as her hand-written poems and one of her fingers! There was a small restaurant just outside the city’s walls where the entire tour group stopped for a complimentary drink and tapa. We ordered a few extra tapas and enjoyed them with several other members of our tour group while we discussed current and crazy American politics.
Segovia
After lunch we left Ávila and traveled on by bus for another hour to Segovia. Also in the autonomous region of Castilla y León, Segovia boasts a hugely impressive Roman aqueduct, a massive Gothic cathedral, and a fairy-tale style Alcázar. After pointing out its origins outside the city, our guide had us dropped off just beneath the city’s gigantic aqueduct at the entrance to the city. This was impressive. What looks enormous from a distance felt even more so when we were able to stand beneath its arches that date back to the first century A.D. It was awe-inspiring to imagine this two-tiered stucture being constructed so long ago and continuing in use until the late 19th century. We continued on through the streets of Segovia and marveled at the Moorish-style patterns that adorned many of the old buildings. These once living quarters of Segovia’s most elite noblemen have a very unique style that we didn’t see anywhere else in our journey through Spain.
We soon arrived at Segovia’s Plaza Mayor, standing in front of the Segovia Cathedral. Gothic in style, what impressed me the most about this cathedral in particular was the cloister. The pointed arches and columns create a window-like appearance that offer a view into the lush, green courtyard in a way that struck me as impressively beautiful. The rest of the cathedral was beautiful as well, but nothing spectacular compared to other Spanish cathedrals in my opinion.
We exited the cathedral and continued on to the far side of the city to see Segovia’s final popular attraction, the Alcázar. The Alcázar, Spanish for castle, sits on the edge of a rocky crag above the river and looks out above the simple, flatter plains of the region. Even on a cloudy day such as this, the landscape was captivating. It was easy to envision this castle rising above medieval Segovia, a constant reminder of who ruled and who was ruled. Unfortunately, I somehow managed to book the tour package that did not include entrance tickets to the Alcázar, so we had to wait outside while the others toured the interior. I chose to view this mishap as extra time to grovel at the Alcázar’s mammouth exterior which I won’t soon forget.
Toledo
We spent our fifth day in Spain on a day trip to Toledo. We were a bit exhausted by our full-day tour to Ávila and Segovia, so we opted to tackle Toledo on our own. After a 30 minute train ride from Madrid, we arrived in the historicly significant and picturesque city of Toledo. We were soon reminded that the city sits atop a hill as we walked up from the train station to the city’s main attractions. Our first stop was the city’s Alcázar. This former palace is now Spain’s main military museum. It was neat to see the ruins from the much older fortresses that previously stood on this space, but we didn’t have enough time to fully explore the museum. For this reason, it was a bit of a waste of time and money for us.
We left the Alcázar and made our way to Toledo’s Cathedral, the Catedral Primada Santa María de Toledo. This particular cathedral is the heart of the Church in Spain and is widely considered to be the best example of Spanish Gothic style which includes Mudéjar influences. There are many works of art adorning the walls of the sacristy, most importantly El Greco’s The Disrobing of Christ on the high altar. It is fitting to see works of El Greco in Toledo because he lived in this city for many years while painting his many of his religious works.
Because the walk from the train station took a bit longer than we had anticipated, we were running out of time in Toledo before we needed to walk back to catch our departing train. Ideally, we would have had time to go to Mirador del Valle for the best view of the city, but we settled for absolutely checked my “sucker for a view” box. The Iglesia de los Jesuitas, another church in Toledo, offered an unforgetable view of Toledo’s skyline from its two towers. The church itself was forgettable (I took zero pictures of the interior), but the easy hike up to the tower balcony was the highlight of Toledo for me. With the Alcázar to the left and the Cathedral to the right, this city view on a sunny day capped off a nice half-day excursion to Toledo.
