Heavily fortified cities and a fairytale castle in Ávila and Segovia

After leaving the Golden City of Salamanca with a very high opinion of it, our next destinations had a lot to try and live up to. Our first stop was Ávila, a town famous for its walls, which completely surround the whole of the centre of the town, a perimeter of 2.5km, including 88 towers, 9 gates and an average height of 12m. They are huge! We did a walk around these magnificent Romanesque syle walls and it is stunning to see just how well preserved they are, it's almost as though you were walking by them 1000 years ago when they were first built.

Beautiful view of Ávila from Los Cuatro (The Four) Postes landmark, just outside the town

View from just outside the walls

Built into the walls of the town is the Cathedral, which is one of the main attractions of the town, and is considered fairly unique due to the fact that its east side forms part of the walls of the town, being part fortress and part cathedral.

The fortress Cathedrals east side that forms part of the town walls

The Cathedral north side and entrance

 Many of the buildings within the town were constructed at various times throughout the middle ages in very similar styles to the walls, giving the whole town a very medieval feel to it. The difference between Ávila and Caceres, which we previously visited beforehand, was the fact that Ávila was a bit more touristy and busy, it felt like it had a bit more life in it. We strolled for several hours through the streets of Ávila enjoying this feeling and seeing all the medieval buildings.

Convento de Santa Teresa

Whilst we were strolling around we visited the Convento de Santa Teresa (pictured above). This convent/church is quite important in the town of Ávila as it plays a central role in the Fiestas de Santa Teresa (Festival of Saint Teresa), which takes place throughout nearly the whole month of October, including; concerts, processions, bullfights, and of course eating. This is a festival that is only celebrated in the area around Ávila. The Convent of Saint Teresa however is also famous in Ávila for a sweet made out of egg yolk, called Yemas de Santa Teresa, which used to be made by the nuns of the convent hundreds of years ago to sell to locals to raise money for the convent. Egg yolk was used because the nuns had lots of spare egg yolk around, due to always needing egg whites to starch their habits.

Yemas de Santa Teresa

The other place that stood out for us whilst strolling around, mainly due to its vibrancy and life, was Plaza Mayor and the market place at the very heart of the town. Here was where everyone was going about selling their locally made and grown food, shouting out about their special deals and high quality, it felt a bit like being back in a Medina in Morocco. Carmen got especially excited when she spotted some cherries for a really good price and had to snatch them up.

The market in Plaza Mayor

We had only one day in Ávila and it was enough we felt to explore the town and see some of the local life, we got an early night in preparation for an early start the next day to allow us time to visit Segovia before we caught a bus in the evening to get to Madrid!

Segovia is a truly beautiful town with lots of amazing bits of architecture to see from various periods throughout history. It actually turned out to be one of our favourite places in Spain, and I am sure you will agree with us once you see just how beautiful it is.

A little taster of the town

Arriving in Segovia we were greeted by a parade of people dressed up in military dress from medieval times and from the 20th century. They were playing music and marching up and down the high street attracting attention from everyone, especially when they would stop periodically and the leader of the group would shout out a phrase in Spanish for all to hear. Unfortunately we were never able to work out what exactly the parade was meant to signify, even after research on the internet. However it did make for a lively introduction to the town.

The parade down the high street

The parade finished at the bottom of the high street right beneath the aqueduct, which was made an UNESCO world heritage site in 1985 along with the old town of Segovia. The aqueduct is a marvel of of Roman civil engineering, considered to be the most important in the whole of Spain. Built in the 1st century AD, spanning 818 meters in length and 29 meters in height, made of 25,000 granite blocks held together without any mortar, with more than 170 arches, it is incredible. It's seeing things like this built nearly 2000 years ago with limited tools and machinery that makes you really admire it and wonder how they could possibly manage to do it.

The 2000 year old Roman aqueduct

The aqueduct however is just the beginning of this beautiful town, our next stop was the Segovia Cathedral, named 'The Lady of Cathedrals', which was the last Gothic cathedral built in Spain. It is considered a masterpiece and it is easy to see why, with lots of mini spires all over the exterior of the cathedral reaching towards the sky, and a huge main spire towering over the top, reaching 90 metres in height it certainly stands out on the horizon, as can be seen by the first photo from Segovia above. Located in Plaza Mayor it makes a great backdrop for everyone going about their business and eating outside from the many restaurants and bars in the area, as well as some nice pasteleria's, one of which we bought a chocolate filled pastry from, supposedly traditional at Easter.

The Lady of Cathedral's

 The last of the big three attractions in Segovia is the Alcazar, built nearly 1000 years ago on top of a rock between two rivers, at the very end of the town, with amazing views over the land below and the nearby mountains. It is often referred to as a Disneyland castle due to its pointed towers and very picturesque style. Not only is the castle very picturesque from the outside, it also has beautiful interiors, decorated very grandly, suitable for the Kings of Castile, who favoured it as a residence (as I also certainly would had I been king). The castle has a lot of history behind it, formerly used as the home of the royal court, the residence of Isabella the Catholic, the site of the wedding of Phillip II, the home of the Spanish Artillery Academy, and currently as a museum and home of the Spanish General Military Archive. Unfortunately inside the castle it was very crowded, with lots of groups going round on tours. We kept trying to escape them but didn't get away with it.

The Alcazar looking like a castle out of Disneyland

The Alcazar from the front entrance

 To finish off our trip to Segovia we thought we would do something a bit different. We decided to visit a food museum. We were first shown a video about what food is grown in the area and how it is produced, which lasted about 15 minutes before then being allowed to taste some really special Jamon, cheese and wine, with some bread. All of which I found delicious, except for the cheese (I don't like cheese unfortunately, but Carmen did like it). We then looked around the museum, which was really interesting because it told you about the history of food growth and production in the area. We were surprised to see just how much food was produced in the region of Segovia.

Our Jamon, cheese and wine

 After filling ourselves up with this little treat we were ready to leave; next stop, Madrid, where we would meet up with several friends.