My last full day in Madrid, I decided to check out Segovia. I really wanted to see the Aqueduct of Segovia. This was as great place for a day trip and I highly recommend it. I was an 1 hour 20 minute bus ride and I booked the bus ticket using Omio. This website is super convenient for all travel in Europe!
In the morning, I made my way to Moncloa Station, which was a transit bus and train center. Once you were inside, you should see a line of people waiting by their bus gate number. I did not get my gate number on my ticket so I had to look for it. I could not find any information booth here so I went from gate to gate, looking at the signs and luckily, I was able to find the gate. The seats are the assigned so it’s first come, first serve. If you have someone you want to sit with, it is best if you get here early.
TIP: Even though it was off-peak season, the bus was filled! So I would recommend booking tickets early and getting to the transit center early, too.
This bus had two stops. The first one is Cristo Mercado and the second one is Segovia. Do not get off at the first one! This is a local bus stop by the street. They don’t really make clear announcements on the bus and lots of locals were getting off here so I can seem like this is the stop. Wait until the next stop and they should stop at a Bus station.
Once we got off, we started to walk towards the Aqueduct. The city is very small and everything is walking distance. Once you start walking towards the city, you should see the Aqueduct in the distance. And once you get close to it, you will notice how huge this is.
Walking through the arches, you are just amazed by ancient architectural beauty. Seriously, how did they built such a thing back in the days? You can walk up to the top and get a view of the city with the aqueducts. It is just spectacular.
After admiring it for awhile, we headed towards the city to find a place to eat. There were several restaurant choices but a lot of them were closed. So we ended up at Restaurante El Sitio. It didn’t look it from the outside, but it wasn’t a cheap bar/restaurante. I guess never judge a book by its cover.
We tried lubina horno (fish) and cochinillo racion (suckling pig). We didn’t get to see them actually cut the suckling pig but I was told that if we order 4 servings of it, they will bring out the whole pig.
TIP: If you are looking for something on the cheaper end, look for MENU DEL DIA. This is like the daily special menu and for a set price, you get a small course meal.
After our meal, we headed towards Catedral de Segovia. This catedral was not as grand as the one in Seville but still amazing. The gothic architecture and its details were so pretty. When we went inside, there was a ticket booth. There were two options for tickets available when we got there : General entrance fee (€3) and entrance and bell tower (€7). We wanted to get a good view of the city so we decided to do the bell tower. However, for the bell tower, they had a specific time slot and they only had the 4pm one available.
So while we waited, we decided to head over to Alcázar de Segovia first. The line for the ticket was really short but they had ropes wrapping around for busy season. General palace tickets were €5.5 and an extra €2.5 for Torre de Juan II. Since we were getting the bird’s eye view of the city from the Catedral, we decided to just do the Palace.
Before entering the palace, we spent some time admiring the outside of the Palace. Some people were saying that this place inspired Disney when they were designing the Cinderella’s castle. And I could see some resemblance in the pointy tops.
The inside was also impressive. The decors in each room were vastly different and each were unique. The Galley Room was my favorite with the gold molding. All the rooms had lots of windows that brought in sunlight and I bet the Royals living here loved to look at their land while enjoy the sunlight.
After walking through the rooms, you end up outside on the castle walls. It’s not the highest part of the castle but provides some view of the outside area.
After seeing all the rooms, we headed back to the Catedral for our tour. Unfortunately, they only provided one English tour and we had missed that one. Our tour was conducted in Spanish but our guide was able to answer questions in English and most of the signs had both languages.
We had to climb up several flights of stairs but had breaks in between which helped a lot. And once at top, you won’t regret it. The 360 view of the Catedral and the city was amazing! One really interesting fact I learned was that this Catedral’s tower was burned down due to a fire and they had to bring in another architect to rebuild. And their new architect decided that instead of a tower, he built a dome in a different style.
After seeing the view from up top, we headed back down and looked around the Catedral and found a small museum. We couldn’t take photos but they had several different Virgin and Child paintings. And as it was getting closer to sunset, we headed outside towards the courtyard and was greeted with amazing colors. It was hard to find the entrance to the courtyard and because of this, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was beautiful.
After viewing everything, we walked around the city. We needed some pick me up and ended up at Confitería El Alcázar, a sweets shop, and tried Ponche Segoviano. Guys. 100% please try this! This was amazing! It was like custard filled pastry and it was so good! I wish I could have bought a bigger size as take out! It was that good.
This was a really good day trip. Since it only took 1 hour 20 minutes, you got to spend more time seeing the city than in a bus. You can definitely make this into an overnight stay if you end up seeing both towers and doing some hikes around the city.
Moons on the Move 