Segovia

Segovia has a beautiful alcázar, a cathedral, an aqueduct, and roast suckling pig. It's a great day trip from Madrid.

We took the Madrid Metro to the train station so we could catch our train and then catch a bus into Segovia.

Our first step was the alcázar because we didn’t have tickets. (The alcázar requires that you choose a time slot and we didn’t know what time we would get there.) Our next stop was the cathedral. It’s larger than the cathedral in Toledo but the interior is not as ornate.

After leaving the cathedral we headed to a spot where it looked like you could climb up on the city walls. However when we got there we discovered that the place where you bought the tickets closed at 2:00 p.m. and it was 2:30 so we got to look at the walls but not walk on them. It was nice walking in the Juderia neighborhood behind the cathedral. There were some cool old buildings there.

By then we were ready for lunch so we headed for the aqueduct where we had lunch at Don Candido. Roast suckling pig is the local specialty so eating that was a planned part of our day trip. We had broad beans with pork as a starter because that’s also a local delicacy. It was quite good and it was nice to eat soup on a kind of chilly rainy day. The roast suckling pig was delicious as were the fried potatoes we got to go with it. It was an interesting old building made up of several small cozy rooms. There were woodwork murals, interesting brickwork, and furniture. Definitely our nicest meal of the trip complete with white tablecloths and servers who ask your permission before removing your empty plates.

After lunch we were pretty full and it was almost time to head back for our train so we went for a brief walk and then dawdled around and took some photos of the aqueduct which is impressive in itself. Plus more storks and a rainbow. We had an early bus back to the train station and then just sat there waiting for the train. We were happy we did because it started pouring while we were in the train station so we are happy to be under a roof.

We did day trips to both Toledo and Segovia from Madrid. They’re about equal in ease of getting there. If you only have time to do one we would recommend Segovia because it too has a cathedral and it has a better alcázar.