EuroTrip 2013 | Spain Day 5: Visiting Segovia, Roman Aqueduct, Alcazar (Castle)

Fairytale castle!

I’m sitting here with 25 minutes before we head out to catch our overnight bus back to Barcelona, so I’ll make this a quickish post. Today we took a day trip to Segovia, a quaint medieval city with a giant Roman Aqueduct and a fairy tale castle. Overall, I really liked Segovia because it was a relatively close 40 miles away from Madrid and wasn’t filled with tons of tourists, since it’s a smaller town.

Our bus ride took an hour and a half and we arrived and went straight to the aqueduct. It was hard to miss and before long loomed into view, an imposing, ancient structure that filled us with awe. I still find it hard to believe the engineering prowess of the ancient Romans, each block of stone was still there, and the structure itself, which brought fresh water to ancient cities, was still in amazing shape for being thousands of years old.

After exploring the area around the aqueduct, we went to a fairy tale castle called Alcazar. It was magnificent and rose out of the ground, with blue-tinted pointy roofs that reminded me of Disneyland. Cooler still, some online sleuthing points to this castle as the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Cinderella Castle!

Even cooler was the inside of the castle, decorated with medieval objects and a lot of knights armor. We walked through a common area, dining room, sleeping quarters, and even went to the cellar where we spotted a dungeon-like room.

A quick climb up to the tower gave us an awesome view of the small town, a mix of old buildings, new shops and restaurants, and medieval city walls still standing at certain parts. I definitely enjoyed the time spent at the castle – it was a real treat.

We also stopped by a cathedral, enjoyed some dinner, and made it back to Madrid with some time to spare before our bus. We’ll be in Barcelona tomorrow and catching an evening flight back to London, rounding out our month-long journey.