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Published: September 12th 2010
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The Roman Aqueduct
One of the two largest surviving Roman structures in Spain One of the great things about Syracuse, is that they really help you in terms of getting to know the culture, language, and great places while we are here. One of the ways they do this is by offering a couple different weekend day trips to cities close to Madrid. The first of these was to Segovia.
Segovia is an incredibly historic town with a population of about 50,000 and is a dedicated UNESCO site. It was a place of great importance during Roman and medieval times, and still has lots of small Roman streets and alleys that are pedestrian only as well as tons of Romanesque churches. It was a very charming town to visit and we went with a couple professors from the university that were able to share all the history and lead us through the city in the morning and we then had the afternoon to look around, eat lunch, and explore a little bit.
The lead professor who did the English tour was my Origins of Christianity professor (Alex) who tells the stories and history of these places with incredible detail and enthusiasm, and is simply amazing to listen to. When he is done,
you feel like you really have a good understanding and appreciation for the sites you visited and things you saw.
I unfortunately, was not originally in Alex's group but in another polisci professors group who was only her second time in Segovia and was roped into coming last minute because they had more students go than originally expected. Pilar was terrible to say the least. She was so bad it was almost comical. Everywhere we went, she would say "ok, what did Alex want me to tell you here", read from a paper and ask all these questions such as "I wonder why this was built like this" or "what is the significance of this" as if we would know the answers. She was also incredibly distracted and would walk off to look at things in mid sentence that she thought looked "interesting". Needless to say, her group didn't stay with her to long, and we were soon with Alex for the rest of the morning and Alex seemed to know why all of a sudden he had twice as many people in his group.
One of the most famous sites there is the Roman Aqueduct, one of the
Segovia Cathedral
Build in the old Gothic Style, except for the dome, in the 1500's. best preserved in all of Europe. It was built in the 1st century and was still used up until recently, primarily bringing water to the Alcázar, the large Spanish castle that Segovia is known for as well. We went into Alcázar, which served many purposes, probably most famously as the place where Queen Isabella ruled from and gave Columbus his financing from. It also served as inspiration for Walt Disney when building his Disneyland castle. It is an imposing structure perched overlooking the entire valley and also offers great views looking back over the city.
During the day, I got to talking with a Spanish student from Madrid who came along with a couple of Spanish students who wanted to meet American students and practice English. Louis had just finished his law degree and was now learning English and French and furthering his knowledge of civil law. He was nice, though slightly awkward, and provided me with a good chance to chat in Spanish. He was also very helpful later when it came to finding lunch (read on).
Besides the famous architecture, Segovia is also famous for a special type of food: cochinillo. Cochinillo is basically baby pig
Alcázar of Segovia
A castle originally built as a fortress, but later served as a palace, a state prison, a college, and also a military academy. cooked in its entirety until it is so tender you can simply cut it with the side of a plate. We really wanted to try it, but were groaning a little bit at the price (upwards of 25 euros). But Louis, along with two girls from our group, went off to find a good deal. Thanks to Louis' persistence and bargaining skills, we were able to find a great place with a three course meal that they would let us split for two so that we only each paid 11 euros for a great meal with cochinillo. Between myself (American), Louis (Spanish), Hansika (Indian) and Junting (Chinese) we had a very international table! The girls, however, were rather grossed out by the idea that the pig would come with the head, ears, legs, tail and all, so we ordered it already cut and served on plates. But it was still very good and were left all very satisfied.
INTERESTING FACT: Pork was used a way to get the Jewish out of Spain at the end of the 1400's during the great expulsion and is one of the reasons it has become so famous and widespread throughout the country. They
offered ham everywhere one would eat, and if the people didn't eat it, it was assumed they were Jewish and were reported.
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Aunt Lorraine
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Todd - I can't wait to read of your travels - you have already met so many people from all over! I am glad you decided to blog