Where is Colin? He’s in a free Aire in Segovia at N40º56.449 W4º6.475. There’s a waste point and a tap here, but the tap is underground so requires a hose to use it and we don’t have a suitable fitting for it. Good job we don’t need any water today*!
Towards the end of last year I read a blog post from a couple touring who stopped off at Segovia and, upon seeing their photos, put it on my list of places I wanted to visit whilst in Spain and today it fitted nicely into our route.
Leaving our campsite just a couple of minutes after the Tenerife-bound convoy rolled off-site (which itself was just a few minutes after daylight hit), a short hop of under 3 hours brought us to the Aire in the car park of the bullring in Segovia.
Had I realised that the Google Maps App doesn’t north-orientate its maps (is there a setting I’m missing?), we set out for the town in the wrong direction and, having put ourselves right we missed the start of the aqueduct, which was the very reason we were here. That meant that rather than first seeing it as it starts to become elevated, on initially very small arches, we came upon it at its most impressive point, as it towers above the town:
It’s not really curved at this point – that’s just a feature of having the phone stitch together a panoramic shot. Here’s a less-curvy snap of just a small section of it:
The entire aqueduct is just shy of 15km long, of which just under 1km is elevated above the ground. At its tallest it is 28 metres, and it comprises 166 arches. All impressive enough, but the bit that I find quite incredible is that it was built around the end of the first century AD, and was constructed without the use of any motar. I say again: incredible!
That isn’t the only visit-worthy feature of the city either. Of note there is also the cathedral…
…which maybe we should have visited inside (€3 a head), but as I’ve only just warmed up from yesterday’s visit to Burgos cathedral, and as it was even colder out today (just 4 degrees), we just walked around the outside on our way to the castle. Having read about it as a fairytale castle (i.e. Disneyesque) I was a little disappointed, but maybe it looks more fairytale when parts of it aren’t wrapped in scaffolding and netting. The view from there back to the city, over the city walls, was certainly worth seeing:
Walking back towards the viaduct, the wind was positively biting, so it was no surprise when a few little flakes of snow started to fall. That was our cue to duck into a cafe for coffee and cake.
Following the aqueduct on the way back to Colin was a much shorter route than our meandering inbound one and I would share some photos of the ‘small arches’ end of the aqueduct if I hadn’t taken them all on the camera rather than on the phone.
And now, as the sun sets, making the walls of the bull ring (itself apparently a very old building, although I’ve seen no inforamtion about it), there are four motorhomes parked in its car park. It’s quite multinational, with one each from Italy, France and Spain, plus us.
(*Ah! Spoke too soon there. When we got back from our tour of the city earlier we vaguely talked about using the last hour and a half of the day to move further south. It wasn't till dark that (noticing that it was getting quite parky) I looked at the forecast and found a prediction of -5 tonight. Having considered the options as to how to stop water freezing in the bits of Colin's plumbing where it could cause damage, I decided that draining down his entire system was the best option. So, we really could now do with being able to refill in the morning.)
Towards the end of last year I read a blog post from a couple touring who stopped off at Segovia and, upon seeing their photos, put it on my list of places I wanted to visit whilst in Spain and today it fitted nicely into our route.
Leaving our campsite just a couple of minutes after the Tenerife-bound convoy rolled off-site (which itself was just a few minutes after daylight hit), a short hop of under 3 hours brought us to the Aire in the car park of the bullring in Segovia.
Had I realised that the Google Maps App doesn’t north-orientate its maps (is there a setting I’m missing?), we set out for the town in the wrong direction and, having put ourselves right we missed the start of the aqueduct, which was the very reason we were here. That meant that rather than first seeing it as it starts to become elevated, on initially very small arches, we came upon it at its most impressive point, as it towers above the town:
It’s not really curved at this point – that’s just a feature of having the phone stitch together a panoramic shot. Here’s a less-curvy snap of just a small section of it:
The entire aqueduct is just shy of 15km long, of which just under 1km is elevated above the ground. At its tallest it is 28 metres, and it comprises 166 arches. All impressive enough, but the bit that I find quite incredible is that it was built around the end of the first century AD, and was constructed without the use of any motar. I say again: incredible!
That isn’t the only visit-worthy feature of the city either. Of note there is also the cathedral…
…which maybe we should have visited inside (€3 a head), but as I’ve only just warmed up from yesterday’s visit to Burgos cathedral, and as it was even colder out today (just 4 degrees), we just walked around the outside on our way to the castle. Having read about it as a fairytale castle (i.e. Disneyesque) I was a little disappointed, but maybe it looks more fairytale when parts of it aren’t wrapped in scaffolding and netting. The view from there back to the city, over the city walls, was certainly worth seeing:
Walking back towards the viaduct, the wind was positively biting, so it was no surprise when a few little flakes of snow started to fall. That was our cue to duck into a cafe for coffee and cake.
Following the aqueduct on the way back to Colin was a much shorter route than our meandering inbound one and I would share some photos of the ‘small arches’ end of the aqueduct if I hadn’t taken them all on the camera rather than on the phone.
And now, as the sun sets, making the walls of the bull ring (itself apparently a very old building, although I’ve seen no inforamtion about it), there are four motorhomes parked in its car park. It’s quite multinational, with one each from Italy, France and Spain, plus us.
(*Ah! Spoke too soon there. When we got back from our tour of the city earlier we vaguely talked about using the last hour and a half of the day to move further south. It wasn't till dark that (noticing that it was getting quite parky) I looked at the forecast and found a prediction of -5 tonight. Having considered the options as to how to stop water freezing in the bits of Colin's plumbing where it could cause damage, I decided that draining down his entire system was the best option. So, we really could now do with being able to refill in the morning.)
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