Castille and cold weather

News No 4

We have visited two old Castillian cities, Segovia and Avila. Getting there from Valladolid was easy – this is a typical via of the Autovia on our way there.

We think this was around lunchtime, but as we have seen people arriving in car parks for work as early as 7.30 am and leaving as late as 21.30, with lunch seeming to be taken anywhere from 13.00 to 17.00, we are not sure what hours the Spanish do keep in the cold winter months.

Segovia

Where the royals stayed – without the electricity pylons in their time, no doubt.

The famous Roman aquaduct – built without any mortar and still in excellent condition. It did require some repairs after the battles with the Moors – now referred to in guides as the 'Wars of the Communities'.

Street vendors sell their lottery tickets, and we have seen long queues at the special 'lottery shops' too.

Another view of the Roman aquaduct – but we couldn't get all 16 km into the photograph

The cathedral organ had horizontal as well as vertical pipes – something we hadn't seen before – and for some reason two separate but apparently similar organs

And this is where we stayed!! Not quite as large as the royals of Castille enjoyed – probably more warm and comfortable, buy without the servants!

And very convenient for visiting

We had rather more room to ourselves in Avila than we did in Segovia

Famous for being one of the best preserved walled towns in Spain – and it would compete with any such town anywhere for that title, it also seems to have a cathedral built almost in the brutalist school of architecture [no sorry it's not quite as awful as Stalin's wedding cake, which some of you may remember from our trip last year] – certainly we can see why they called in the French and Germans to help with the cathedral at Bourges.

The city walls are something else though – but difficult to do justice to in a photograph

We came across a building where they had emulated the Romans in Segovia by building without mortar

Once again we didn't have far to walk to enjoy our visit

The building in front of the city walls is the police station – what with that and the 0 deg. temperature outside – due to being about 3400 ft above sea level – we are not expecting any rowdy youths to disturb our sleep!!