Pig Out!

February 25th--Today we took a day trip to Segovia. It's about 30 minutes (via train) north of Madrid. We made reservations and our train was to leave at 10:30. Well...our train did leave at 10:30, we just weren't on it. Apparently, we misjudged our time from the apartment to the train station. We left the apartment and had to take 2 subways to the train station. We arrived at the station about 10:28 but had no idea where we were to go. Mike was holding Austin and I was dragging Abby behind me as we ran through the train station. All that running and we still missed it. We went to the ticket window and were able to get on the next train which left at noon, so no big deal. In the end, it actually turned out better that we caught the later train because had we arrived in Segovia as planned, we would of had too much time to kill before our train departed back to Madrid. So, we arrived at the Segovia train station at 12:30 and took bus #11 (per Rick Steve's) into the town which was about a 20 minute ride. The bus dropped us off right in front of the Roman aqueduct. Segovia was a Roman military base and needed water. Emperor Trajan's engineers built a nine-mile aqueduct to channel water from the Rio Frio to the city. The exposed section, which we walked, is 2,500 feet long and 100 feet high. It was an amazing thing to see especially since it was all built with 20,000 granite blocks without any mortar. From the aqueduct, we walked to Plaza Mayor where we decided to have lunch. We ate at La Concepcion Restaurante (again, thanks Rick Steve's) where we experienced Segovia's culinary claim to fame, roast suckling pig (cochinillo asado) and judiones de La Granja (a popular soup made with flat white beans from the region and pig ears). Along with our meal, we enjoyed a wonderful bottle of red wine while watching the kids play in the square with several other kids. After a nice 2 hour lunch and with our bellies full, we went into the Cathedral. The church was absolutely beautiful...again, we are amazed at the fine architecture and construction from the 1500's. It was definitely a educational experience for all; especially Abby. She asked a lot of really good questions about Jesus, his death and resurrection based on the many paintings and sculptures. After leaving the Cathedral, we walked to see the Alcazar. The Alcazar is a fortified castle that has also served as a prison and a Royal Artillery School. The kids loved entering on the "grumpy ole troll's bridge" and finding the Princess room. After touring the castle, we climbed 152 stairs up to the tower. It was a little rough climbing all those stairs, but well worth the view from atop. We could see the town of Segovia and the snow capped mountains in the distance. Apparently, after seeing the palace, we had walked off our lunch and went looking for a dessert. Rick Steve's recommends a place called Limon y Menta so we didn't want to leave anything out of our culinary experience so we tried his 2 recommendations...ponche segoviano (mazapan) cake and the honey-and-almond crocantinos. They were both good, but the cake was to die for. Loved it!!! After enjoying our snack in Plaza Mayor, we walked back to the bus stop where we boarded the bus back to the train station. Our train left Segovia at 8:13 back to Madrid. We got back to the apartment about 9;30 and all headed for bed after a wonderful day in Spain!