Segovia is 107 kms from Madrid, a train trip of 28 minutes. You have to add to that the confusion time involved in buying suburban tickets from Madrid Atocha to Madrid Chamartin to start the journey, as well as the 6 km bus trip at the Segovia end to get from its improbably located train station to the city centre. It was cold today, with an even colder wind. The mountains around Segovia still have snow. We hopped off the bus and gawped at the massive viaduct which the Romans built around 1900 years ago to bring the new aqueduct to a rather unimportant little city. The thing is, the Romans did this sort of thing all the time, all over the place. We would later see a beautiful medieval cathedral and a fairytale castle but nothing impressed like this randomly surviving chunk of Roman civil engineering.
We knew mass in the cathedral was at 12.30 so we meandered through the old streets randomly discovering old churches and fascinating places. Even the street signs impressed.
Then came the unmistakable sound of a Spanish brass band. Easter procession! Seconds later we were in cathedral square to find Easter Sunday in full swing. The bands played, everybody in a uniform marched, the ladies wore white mantillas, a Virgin Mary pasos approached a smaller Jesus pasos and bowed! It was joyful. There were no Nazarenes and the bands and the pasos carriers were generously applauded.
Eventually the whole gang crowded into the cathedral and mass began. The crowd was such that some very indignant late arrivals had to stand throughout. Spanish masses, like Italian masses, give me plenty of opportunity to admire vaulting, stained glass and such. Segovia is an impressive cathedral which benefits from light-coloured stone and a lack of the endless, gloomy and gated chapels which blight Seville’s monster of a cathedral.
Devotions completed we walked to the Alcazar which is the place that inspired Walt Disney’s idea of a castle. Much of it is reconstruction after a dreadful fire but the views are stunning. We rather raced around. It had lots of militaria but apart from the views ... well we have seen quite a few castles and we had buses and trains to catch.
So we walked back through this beautiful little city a different way and then retraced our journey back to Madrid.
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