Hola Chicos,
For those of you who don’t understand the title, Dejé la Corazón Mia en Segovia, it means “I left my heart in Segovia.” Sorry it has taken me so long to post about our trip to Segovia, but being the most beautiful place I have ever visited, I wanted to make sure I was posting an entry without being in a hurry. Anyways, here’s why my heart is in Segovia.
[I started writing so much that I decided to divide this into two posts, so read this one first and get psyched for the next one which I’ll post tomorrow. I didn’t want to overwhelm anyone!]
We started our adventure early in the morning at 8:45AM; it was early considering I went out to celebrate my friends’ birthdays the night before and posted a nice entry on the blog in the middle of the night. We drove for about an hour and a half outside of Madrid with snow on the ground and partly cloudy skies. Many of us took a nap and rested so when we arrived in Segovia, it was like an entry into a whole new world. Unlike the DFW or Philadelphia metoplexes, when you go an hour and a half away from Madrid you are no longer even close to a suburb. All around us were rolling farm fields, rich with the brown that remains between harvests, a hue that I have never seen in America. First, however, we stopped a little bit outside of Segovia in the mountains at La Granja, which was the vacation
palace of Felipe II. His family ties to Versaille encouraged him to construct a beautiful palace and gardens in the French style that were revolutionary in incorporating nature with indoors, using arcades of fully-opening French doors to allow light and air in. When we visited, there was a guard in every room to protect the immense beauty of the collections, so I didn’t get many photos of the inside, but let's just say that they're priceless. Gorgeous paintings on every ceiling and gilded everything. Also, lacquer art from Asia was very popular at the time. But for the pictures you see here, there are immense gardens and over 20 fountains. What's unbelieveable is that without any use of electricity or motors, the engineers at the time used the pressure of mountain streams to force water through the fountains, one after the other. The bottom one gets all the pressure of the ones before and shoots 40 METERS into the sky. It wasn't on because of winter, but wow. 
Next, we began our walk down the cobbled streets in what is considered Spain’s most preserved medieval city. It feels very weird to walk down streets that haven’t changed much in 500 years. They aren’t knockoffs made by Disney or Universal studios. Everywhere we go, I feel like I’m going to turn the corner and see that the beautiful scene is just a plywood façade, but it hasn’t happened yet.
The first sight to see was the Roman Aqueduct constructed in who knows when, I think it was 100 B.C. or A.D. Can’t remember which, but it
doesn’t really matter, because the granite structure has not decayed nearly at all and is one of the most complete structures of Roman construction. It’s in considerably better shape than the Aqueduct in Italy. This one was once 15 km long (nearly 9 miles), but luckily the part that remains is the most beautiful section, nearly four stories tall! The Aqueduct was not constructed with any nails, pegs, cement, or mortar; simply stones that were cut and arranged to fit perfectly with one another. Many years ago, preservation efforts thought it would be a good idea to nail it together. They got one pillar done and then realized that it was stronger to leave it, so the took out all the nails and left it as it was before!
Next, we walked through the city streets to see another Gothic Cathedral. We didn’t have the chance to go inside, but the outside was one of the most beautiful pieces of art you can imagine: soaring tiers of stained glass and ornate stonework. The Cathedral continues to shout the power of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. The Cathedral was mind-blowingly intense. You seem so insignificant when facing such beauty and compilation of capital and labor. And what’s most amazing is that the Church continues to use it for services, hundreds of years later.
For those of you who don’t understand the title, Dejé la Corazón Mia en Segovia, it means “I left my heart in Segovia.” Sorry it has taken me so long to post about our trip to Segovia, but being the most beautiful place I have ever visited, I wanted to make sure I was posting an entry without being in a hurry. Anyways, here’s why my heart is in Segovia.
[I started writing so much that I decided to divide this into two posts, so read this one first and get psyched for the next one which I’ll post tomorrow. I didn’t want to overwhelm anyone!]
We started our adventure early in the morning at 8:45AM; it was early considering I went out to celebrate my friends’ birthdays the night before and posted a nice entry on the blog in the middle of the night. We drove for about an hour and a half outside of Madrid with snow on the ground and partly cloudy skies. Many of us took a nap and rested so when we arrived in Segovia, it was like an entry into a whole new world. Unlike the DFW or Philadelphia metoplexes, when you go an hour and a half away from Madrid you are no longer even close to a suburb. All around us were rolling farm fields, rich with the brown that remains between harvests, a hue that I have never seen in America. First, however, we stopped a little bit outside of Segovia in the mountains at La Granja, which was the vacation
palace of Felipe II. His family ties to Versaille encouraged him to construct a beautiful palace and gardens in the French style that were revolutionary in incorporating nature with indoors, using arcades of fully-opening French doors to allow light and air in. When we visited, there was a guard in every room to protect the immense beauty of the collections, so I didn’t get many photos of the inside, but let's just say that they're priceless. Gorgeous paintings on every ceiling and gilded everything. Also, lacquer art from Asia was very popular at the time. But for the pictures you see here, there are immense gardens and over 20 fountains. What's unbelieveable is that without any use of electricity or motors, the engineers at the time used the pressure of mountain streams to force water through the fountains, one after the other. The bottom one gets all the pressure of the ones before and shoots 40 METERS into the sky. It wasn't on because of winter, but wow. 
Next, we began our walk down the cobbled streets in what is considered Spain’s most preserved medieval city. It feels very weird to walk down streets that haven’t changed much in 500 years. They aren’t knockoffs made by Disney or Universal studios. Everywhere we go, I feel like I’m going to turn the corner and see that the beautiful scene is just a plywood façade, but it hasn’t happened yet.
The first sight to see was the Roman Aqueduct constructed in who knows when, I think it was 100 B.C. or A.D. Can’t remember which, but it
doesn’t really matter, because the granite structure has not decayed nearly at all and is one of the most complete structures of Roman construction. It’s in considerably better shape than the Aqueduct in Italy. This one was once 15 km long (nearly 9 miles), but luckily the part that remains is the most beautiful section, nearly four stories tall! The Aqueduct was not constructed with any nails, pegs, cement, or mortar; simply stones that were cut and arranged to fit perfectly with one another. Many years ago, preservation efforts thought it would be a good idea to nail it together. They got one pillar done and then realized that it was stronger to leave it, so the took out all the nails and left it as it was before!
Next, we walked through the city streets to see another Gothic Cathedral. We didn’t have the chance to go inside, but the outside was one of the most beautiful pieces of art you can imagine: soaring tiers of stained glass and ornate stonework. The Cathedral continues to shout the power of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. The Cathedral was mind-blowingly intense. You seem so insignificant when facing such beauty and compilation of capital and labor. And what’s most amazing is that the Church continues to use it for services, hundreds of years later.Well, that's it for tonight, check back tomorrow for the rest of my day, including my lunch of a Segovian specialty Cochinillo Asado, or Roasted Suckling Pig...
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