Here is an outside view of the palace:
As we approached the palace, we hadn't yet finished the 1.5 liter bottle of water. Brian decided that instead of letting it go to waste, he would finish it. He will come to regret this later.
We took a tour of the palace, which was nice but not outstanding. Perhaps because it was the off-season, there was a guard to visitor ratio of approximately 5:1. In every room, several guards were intently watching us, as though we had plans of touching something or maybe even taking a picture! But we behaved ourselves and headed out for the real treat of the visit: the gardens.
Just as it was with the botanical gardens from our first day's visit, these probably are much more impressive in warmer weather. However, for the first time on our entire trip, we saw a blue sky!
There was abundant wildlife, mostly birds. Brian spent the better part of 20 minutes stalking this (and other) pheasants and taking their pictures. They didn't really seem to mind.
Here he is, walking along a row with fountains. Although it has been many years since I have visited Versailles, I noticed some similarities in the garden layout, which I assume was intentional.
Here I am, in the gardens. I don't remember what's behind me, though:
This fun little house was restricted so we couldn't enter, but it was so pretty that I had to take a picture:
And here's where Brian realizes that he shouldn't have finished that water, that there are no bathrooms in the gardens, and that it's a long way back to the castle. The flowing fountains didn't help matters, but all turned out just fine.
There were no signs telling us when the next bus would come, so we made our way to the bus stop, intending to wait until the next one came. Unfortunately, we just missed the bus, so we had an hour to wait at the stop. It was near some nests of these large white birds, so we watched them as we waited. They were quite entertaining, sitting on their nests, displaying against competitors, etc.
Back in Segovia, we ate lunch at a Spanish chain restaurant called Pans.
Then we headed to the aqueduct. Segovia was a Roman military base, and this aqueduct was built by Emperor Trajan's engineers about 2,000 years ago. It carried water to the city until a couple of centuries ago!
We also went to the Alcazar (fortified palace), which was a highlight of our trip. As a rarity among the sights we visited, pictures were allowed. Here I am, posing by armor:
And Brian, surrounded by opulence:
We climbed 152 large steps in a tight spiral staircase up the tower, to see 360 degree views of the city. Of course we went up as fast as we possibly could, so Brian was feeling a bit winded: 
We walked around Segovia some more, and then returned to Madrid. We had tapas at a few bars as we made our way from the bus station to our neighborhood. We then had dinner at a restaurant. One of the things that we don't like about Europe is the prevalence of smoking. We don't let it ruin our trips, but we are always shocked at the number of people smoking on the streets. Here Brian is, after a glass or two of wine, pretending to smoke his bread stick:
We went to the same Vermouth tapas bar where our bartender was from Ecuador, and then stopped for ice cream as we walked home:
The previous night, as we were entering our hotel, another couple entered right behind us and followed us up the stairs, entering the same hotel as us. (You needed a key to enter at street level and another key to enter the hotel). Twice they didn't use their key. Now, they were our age or younger, didn't look menacing, and were most likely tourists. However, we should not have let them blindly follow us in, and were careful to not let that happen again for the rest of our trip.
We went to the same Vermouth tapas bar where our bartender was from Ecuador, and then stopped for ice cream as we walked home:The previous night, as we were entering our hotel, another couple entered right behind us and followed us up the stairs, entering the same hotel as us. (You needed a key to enter at street level and another key to enter the hotel). Twice they didn't use their key. Now, they were our age or younger, didn't look menacing, and were most likely tourists. However, we should not have let them blindly follow us in, and were careful to not let that happen again for the rest of our trip. In this picture, Brian is making sure that no one can sneak in through the street-level door!
No comments:
Post a Comment