History Colors the Canvas of Segovia

Looking back on it, I’m sure it was just confusion over English grammar, but it was one of the best pieces of advice I got in Segovia: the Plaza Mayor, a Segovian told me, is the place “to get down.”

Segovia is northwest of Madrid, only about an hour and a half by train, so it’s often recommended as a nice day trip from the capital. Segovia’s lofty position--it rises above the surrounding terrain--may be why many Spanish monarchs chose to live here. It appeals to that instinct to repair to the high ground, where you can keep a close eye on anyone who might approach.

The city rests on an arrow-shaped hill whose steep-sided point is framed by the confluence of the Eresma and Clamores rivers. From some angles it looks like a ship, with the Alcazar at its bow, the raised Plaza Mayor as its bridge and the towering cathedral as its mainmast.

With my wife, Janice, and son, Paul, I stopped in Segovia earlier this year, intending to use it merely as a place to recover from jet lag before moving on. But we found ourselves returning repeatedly to the hotel desk, asking, “Would it be all right if we stayed another night?”

With its spires, storks and spirit, Segovia held us, even after the jet lag evaporated.

The first portents had not been promising. On the train trip to Segovia from Madrid, during which I repeatedly nodded off, I kept waking with a start and seeing increasingly threatening weather in the Sierra de Guadarrama, the diagonal slash of mountains through the region northwest of Madrid. The skies were the color of slate, and the wind blew icy snowflakes parallel to the ground, so that they came at the train like vengeful bees.

As the train entered Segovia, however, the sinister clouds relented and allowed a few natural spotlights on the landscape. Then more good luck at the Segovia station. It is well outside the city center and beyond the edge of our guidebook’s map, and we had no idea how to get downtown. But we boarded the bus that everyone else seemed to be taking.

Sensing our confusion, a fellow rider told us we should “get down in the Plaza Mayor,” a syntactical snarl rather than a ‘70s sentiment that made us smile. But, indeed, the Plaza Mayor is the place to get down. The plaza, or main square, is the highest point in this town of 54,000, so it makes a useful reference point for all travel within the city.

But it also is of historical interest, particularly for Americans: This is where the “Infanta Isabel” was crowned Queen Isabella of Castile in 1474. A few years later she and her husband, Ferdinand V of Aragon, would finance the explorations of Christopher Columbus.

The Plaza Mayor makes the logistics of Segovia easy for visitors. Need a hotel? You’ll find one at the edge of the plaza. Hungry? There are restaurants, cafes and bars at the other edge. Want to shop? Just down that alley. Want to tour the cathedral? Not a problem.

So we chose the Hotel Infanta Isabel, right on the square. City officials try to keep the square’s appearance authentically historic, but fortunately this requirement does not extend to hotel interiors, and we found our accommodations comfortable, modern and convenient.

As we stepped out of the hotel each morning, we were greeted by the formidable presence of the Cathedral of St. Mary across the plaza. Although some guidebooks characterize it as “ladylike,” that would be true only if the lady in question were inordinately fond of hat pins: Its fair-complexioned stone exterior bristles with pointy spires. Not consecrated until 1768, it is one of the Continent’s last Gothic constructions.

The interior was cool and subdued under a 100-foot ceiling, a reverent setting for an ornate choir and organ reposing within a fancy grillwork, and a marble altar holding the relics of St. Frutos (also called Fructus), an 8th century hermit and one of the city’s patron saints. (His brother and sister, Valentine and Engratia, also are patron saints of Segovia.) Stepping out through a side door, we found a peaceful cloister garden framed by walls of Moorish-style windows.

The church also serves another purpose, as a resting place for storks. During the day we would see a few of them here and there nesting on towers and chimneys, but as night fell, squadrons of them would return from wherever they had spent the day.

Watching them perch was fascinating; one of these large, almost pterodactyl-looking creatures would soar in and, through some kind of aerodynamic braking maneuver, settle onto the tip of a cathedral spire. They apparently stayed there, balancing like that in their sleep, all night long.

From the cathedral, after a walk of a few blocks down the Marques del Arco, we were at the Alcazar, and we could see why some swear that it’s the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland. (It’s not; that honor goes to Neuschwanstein, “Mad” King Ludwig’s castle near Fussen, Germany.) With its witch’s-hat towers and multiple turrets, it looks like something Walt Disney could have filled with imprisoned princesses, gallant heroes and talking mice.

Replacing earlier fortifications, the Alcazar took its present form, more or less, in the early 15th century. It was nearly destroyed by fire in 1862 and ultimately reconstructed, but not until 1940. Its imposing walls were built out of the milky butterscotch stone that typifies much of Segovia’s construction.

It’s also the kind of place that lends itself to legends. Royal marriages took place here; royal families lived here; on her coronation day young Isabella began her stately procession to the Plaza Mayor from here.

We crossed over the drawbridge and entered the royal quarters. Although the furnishings, stained glass and assembled memorabilia are interesting, the best parts of the interior were over our heads: ornamented beamed ceilings, ceilings of gilded hexagons, elegant arches. We needed a good neck massage when the tour was over.

Then we climbed the 140 steps of the castle’s twisting staircase to the platform at the top of its Tower of Juan II. The view back toward the city, with the cloud-enshrouded mountains and the spectacular cathedral forming a backdrop, made it seem as though the castle had been designed not for city defense but for photography.

Equally photogenic is the city’s Roman aqueduct, trailing from the other end of town--what would be the stern of Segovia’s “ship.” The aqueduct is almost 2,000 years old and about half a mile long, a row of stone arches stacked on another row of stone arches, to a height of 95 feet. Scholars think it was started in the late 1st or early 2nd century. It appears to be in perfect shape, although it was built without mortar.

Like some kind of early, oversize Lego set, the heavy stone blocks are held in place by carefully placed hooks and grooves. It once was a section of a system that channeled the snowmelt from the Frio River, about 10 miles away, across the valleys to the city. Built-in cisterns were used to settle the sediment out of the water before its distribution. The Moors destroyed some of the arches in 1072 as Toledo-based Muslim armies conquered the city. The aqueduct remained in disrepair until 1483, when Isabella ordered its restoration.

The aqueduct is one of the oldest artifacts in Segovia, whose origins are uncertain because the Romans left little documentation of their possession of the area. As in much of Spain, Romans were followed by Visigoths who, in turn, gave way to Moors. Before the Inquisition and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain in the 15th century, Jews, Muslims and Christians shared the city, apparently with little discord. Thus some of Segovia’s buildings display intricate geometric designs characteristic of the work of the Muslim stonemasons and construction tradesmen who lived here in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Segovia’s version of Versailles is about seven miles out of town at the village of La Granja, which we reached easily by bus. The palace of San Ildefonso began as a hunting lodge in about 1400. In the 18th century it was expanded by King Felipe V into a grand country retreat. The mountains alone would have been a dramatic setting, but the palace’s architects embellished that with trees imported from throughout the world, and fountains and waterfalls.

The interior creates a “hall of mirrors” effect--long avenues of rooms filled with statuary, crystal and furniture you can’t sit on (and one wonders if anyone ever did). One wing has been taken over as a tapestry museum and displays floor-to-ceiling woven depictions of religious themes.

Though the tapestries were executed in the 16th century, their colors remain intense. The horrific scenes from the Book of Revelation are appropriately vivid, and the horsemen of the Apocalypse clearly remind the sinner to shape up while there is still time.

La Granja is known also for something slightly less regal: beans, big beans. When I first saw judiones, I thought perhaps Europe had overcome its resistance to genetically engineered foods. But they are natural, even though they look like lima beans grown too close to a nuclear plant. They are about the size of chicken livers, and they taste almost meaty. They often are served with the spicy local sausages, but I found them tasty by themselves.

Any virtue I can claim from eating such a healthy dish probably was offset by another Segovian favorite, roast suckling pig. As in other Spanish cities, Segovian dinners start late by American standards. We arrived at Restaurante Jose on the Plaza Mayor at 7:30. We were seated, but for the next half-hour we sat awkwardly watching the waiters fold napkins and polish silverware.

We were still the only customers when the waiters started serving at 8:15. But the pig was worth the wait. Served whole with excellent little French fries, its skin was crispy and its fatty flesh succulent. I stifled my conscience, which kept recalling children’s book images of playful piglets frolicking in meadows. And the tab for suckling pig for three was about $35, with wine.

Thursday was market day--and rainy. We moved from awning to awning between the vendors’ booths along the streets off the Plaza Mayor. I like open markets because they put me among the people of my host country. The rain put me even closer to them as all of us tried to find shelter around the tables of fresh produce. Segovia’s Thursday markets have been taking place like this for centuries, albeit with a few twists. Thus, when Janice bought some fresh oranges, even though the vendors rang up her purchases on electronic registers with digital read-outs displaying her change in both euros and pesetas, she was participating in a centuries-old tradition.

We saved the Church of Vera Cruz for a sunny day, our last here. Consecrated in 1208 by the Knights Templar, a religious military order, the church lies exposed on a bare knoll outside the city walls on the low-lying north bank of the Eresma River. It is an oddly shaped building--a low-rise 12-sided polygon with a four-story bell tower at one corner. Inside it was dark and still, with heraldic banners draped beneath an arched ceiling. We climbed to a central balcony and looked down into the small chapel. Seven centuries ago we would have seen young men in prayer about to be accepted into the knighthood to embark on their careers of chivalry and violence.

A few minutes later we took a cab to the bus station and embarked on further adventures of our own in Iberia. We would see more castles and monuments and, of course, more churches. But I retain a special fondness for Segovia. I can see myself there again, exploring old neighborhoods, learning their history, eating beans--and getting down in the Plaza Mayor.

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Guidebook: A Stay in Segovia

Getting there: From LAX, connecting service to Madrid (change of planes) is available on US Airways, Air France, American, Lufthansa, Continental, Delta, British, Air Canada, Aer Lingus and KLM. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $1,149 until June 15 then increase to $1,241.

Madrid’s Atocha railway station is about a $25 cab ride from the airport. Inexpensive Metro subway service also is available, but you’ll have to change trains at least twice. The train ride from Atocha to Segovia, a 65-mile trip of about 11/2 hours, costs about $19 first class, $15 second class, one way. For information, (888) 4-EURAIL (438-7245) www.raileurope.com. The train station in Segovia is a 10-minute bus ride from Plaza Mayor.

Telephones: To call numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (international dialing code), 34 (country code for Spain), 921 (city code for Segovia) and the six-digit local number.

Where to stay: Hotel Acueducto, 10 Avenida Padre Claret; 42-48-00, fax 42-84-46, www.hotelacueducto.com. Modern three-star hotel is outside the old city wall but has nice view of the Roman aqueduct. Doubles about $66.

Hotel Infanta Isabel, Plaza Mayor; 46-13-00, fax 46-22-17, www.visitarsegovia.com/hoteles/infantaisabel. Three-star hotel is comfortable and conveniently located for sightseeing and shopping. Doubles from about $62.

Where to eat: La Almuzara, 3 Marques del Arco; 46-06-22. Small restaurant between cathedral and Alcazar has some vegetarian dishes and good soups. Nice stop for lunch on a day of sightseeing. About $20 per couple.

Meson Jose Maria, 11 Calle Coronista Lecea; 46-11-11. Popular restaurant near Plaza Mayor has full dinners, but we liked its tapas. About $7 per person.

Bar Restaurante Jose, 4 Plaza Mayor; 46-09-19. Cochinillo (roast suckling pig) a specialty. Full meal with wine, about $25 per couple.

Cueva de San Esteban, 15 Valdelaguila, 46-09-82. Cavern-like restaurant has judiones, but also fine fish and steak dishes. About $30 per couple.

For more information: Tourist Office of Spain, 8383 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 956, Beverly Hills, CA 90211; (323) 658-7188 or (323) 658-7192, fax (323) 658-

1061, www.okspain.org.

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Jerry V. Haines is a lawyer in Washington, D.C.