Madrid y Segovia - Group Excursion

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This weekend, we took a bus down to Madrid and Segovia as one of our study abroad program excursions. Though I had already been to Madrid, it was fun to go with a new group, and I really enjoyed visiting Segovia for the first time. We left early Friday morning to start the bus ride down to Southern Spain, and as we arrived at our hotel in Madrid, I realized it was the exact same hotel I had stayed in with my group that traveled there senior year of high school!

Friday afternoon was spent touring the Palacio Real and La Plaza Mayor, in which there was a huge crowd of people enjoying a "trisaje" performance, which is apparently some kind of choreographed horse show. We then had some free time to walk around the city on our own and shop, returned back to the hotel for dinner, and had the night to ourselves to hang out with the group and see some Madrid nightlife.

Saturday was another early start, and after breakfast we all piled onto the buses to visit Segovia, a smaller town about an hour and a half outside the capital of Madrid. Segovia was beautiful and traditional, the type of Spanish city I adore so much more than the larger touristy ones. We visited the Roman aqueduct, built in the first century without a drop of mortar and still stands today. We also saw a gorgeous old cathedral, and we were then given a guided tour of Segovia's Alcazar, or palace, which was obviously much smaller and different than Madrid's. After lunch in Segovia's Plaza Mayor and a walk through the city, we headed back to Madrid and had the rest of the day and night to ourselves. There was a HUGE rally in Madrid this afternoon, with hundreds of thousands of people gathering in the city center to protest the Spanish government's negotiation with ETA. After getting through the crowds of people on the metro and in the streets, we took advantage of the Reina Sofia's free Saturday night admission, which is a contemporary art museum in Spain that houses Picasso's famous Guernica, amongst others. The whole group hung out again for a while in the hotel, and then we met up with some other USC students in the USC Madrid program in Madrid's city center to take in a little bit of nightlife action.

Sunday morning, though we were all tired, was great - we spent 3 hours in the Prado, the largest art museum in Spain and one of the best in Europe. The last time I was at the Prado was the day I arrived in Spain, so I remember not seeing much of it because I was so jetlagged. This time, however, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing some of my favorite Spanish paintings, especially Velazguez's Las Meninas. We then got back on the bus for the long ride back to our home of Bilbao.

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[Ryan]

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