October 8, 2011
We took a day trip on Saturday to a town called Segovia. First we saw El Palacio de la Granja which is one of the residents of the royal family of Spain. It was built in the 16th century. It is inspired by the royal Palace of Versailles in France.
The palace is surrounded by gardens which are filled by fountains which are inspired by biblical stories. The fountains still contain the same system as they did in the 16th century which uses water running down the mountain from melted snow. Unfortunately, they only turn on the fountains about 3 times a year now since once the water runs through the fountains it is not renewable. Kind of a bummer.
We also walked around an old Jewish neighborhood in the city before we had a little bit of free time to explore on our own.
Next we went to the Aqueduct of Segovia which is estimated to have been built between the 1st and 2nd centuries by the Romans. Parts of it were later reconstructed during the reign of Isabel and Ferdinand.
Alcazar is another royal palace that we visited in Segovia. However, before being a Spanish palace it was a Moorish fort. It was neat to see a palace that the catholic royalty lived in that had Quranic writings all over the walls. Kind of surreal. I got to see the thrown of Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand as well as their bedroom. The gardens surrounding the palace were so intricate and well-kept.
We later went to an Italian restaurant after arriving back in Salamanca. IT was a 3 hour meal. Good food, but we were all ready to kill each other by the end of the meal. Nonetheless, I’d say it was a successful day.
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