Segovia has long been on my wish list, also because of some raving reviews on this website. On my first afternoon in the city I started with the three famous highlights:

I found the Alcázar more impressive from the outside than from the inside. This may be partly because of the fire in the 19th century after which they replaced the interior by ceilings and furniture from many buildings from all over the country. The cathedral I found more and more appealing the longer I stayed inside but I think I have developed a certain weakness for this strange late Gothic style that they call the Isabelline Gothic and that I find very similar to the Manueline Gothic in Portugal. Its interesting curved lines seem to be inspired from plants and perhaps they even inspired Gaudì. With this style the lady who expelled all Jews and Muslims from Spain left at least one good thing of which the Spanish can still be proud.

I also walked along the aqueduct up to the monastery of Saint Anthony which has very impressive mudejar ceilings. If you compare this aqueduct to other Roman aqueduct like the Pont du Gard it is constructed with much rougher stone blocks. Since I was on foot I didn’t get further along the aqueduct then the obvious aboveground section. The core zone however extends for many more kilometres and include the full length of its (partly disputable) course. If you have a car and some time for hiking you can follow its course all the way. In the Casa de Moneda museum that I will come back to you later I found several guides about the aqueduct and the places where you can see its course. They were all in Spanish only but seemed quite interesting and this WTS seems hardly completely appreciated without seeing these parts.

Beyond those three highlights the old town is quite compact on a rocky hill. But there are not really many more outstanding buildings in the core zone. Most buildings in the old town seem quite new or so heavily renovated that you cannot tell their age. Often you see foundations or a door that seem old but it is hard to tell if the rest is removed or just hidden behind the new material. I felt this was quite similar in other old Spanish cities such as Toledo or Arvila. And this seems different to comparable cities in France or Italy where more historic substance is visible and I’m not quite sure what the reasons for this are.  What they do have here though is a number of Romanesque churches. Many of them are quite impressive from the outside but most of them are closed and it’s often very hard even to find out if they are opening times. I found information for some but often vague and contradicting. Therefore my best guess was to look for times of service since they often open the churches half an hour earlier and this worked out quite a few times. It is a bit strange though that some of the most impressive Romanesque churches are not included in the core zone such as San Millán. 

 

Beyond this there are other strange decisions about the borders of the core zone: There is quite a large part included to the north of the aqueduct that is probably quite old but of rather little interest. The area west of this to the north of the city hill on the other hand is not included. And this is not only a lovely area to walk and explore but it contains some of the most important buildings of the city or perhaps even of Spain in some categories:

I started my walk at the church of San Lorenzo, another very nice Romanesque church surrounded by half timbered houses like a charming village square. I came in the morning to see if I could get inside but the interior was quite altered. From there I walked north and saw by coincidence a sign about a path along the river or partly even on the river named El Sendo de los molinos, the mill path. The river is here quite strong and wild and in the early times of industrialisation they used it for several different kinds of mills,  all in ruins now. The walk turned out to be absolutely enchanting since the water had shaped the rocks around and in the river bed to strange curvy, sometimes seal like shapes for which many a daimyo would have easily spent a fortune and carried them across half the country to put them in his garden. After this I walked to the monastery of San Vicente el Real. This is a rather simple building complex considering it’s royal name but obviously still in use and well-kept: Unfortunately it was closed and there was no sign of any touristic infrastructure. A little disappointed I walked back down the hill to the next monastery called Santa Maria el Parral. I had found out that they give tours at 11 am and at 5 pm so I certainly didn’t want to be late and miss it. At 11 o’clock I was the only person waiting when an elderly man stepped out of the door to the monastery and asked me if I was there for the tour. His question and the following tour were in Spanish, a bit of a challenge for me but I nodded a lot and managed to understand quite a bit. It got easier when after a while two Spanish couples joined the tour who were either by accident there or late. However, the moments when you enter the church is a total wow moment: This is supposedly the first church in this flamboyant style and has a huge altarpiece and similar tombs to each side. Curiously the arches along the churches single nave are in built in many different styles: Romanesque, Gothic, Arabic, Renaissance, flamboyant and even baroque! After the church we could only see a small part of the monastery but there was a fabulous view on the Alcázar and they keep swans and peacocks in some former cloisters! 

Right below this monastery is the Royal Mint built by Philip II. This building is sometimes defined as one of the oldest and best preserved industrial buildings in Europe or even as the worlds’ oldest industrial building! In any case it seems that the building itself is quite original and everything made of stone well preserved while all the wooden tools are naturally lost and now reconstructed since the building served in the 20th century as a flower factory! As often in Spain they provide an excellent though sometimes lengthy audio guide that gives a lots of information about the history of money, minting and the specific history of this building. I like industrial sites often the best the older they are, therefore this was a treat for me.

A bit further on you come to a round church called Vera Cruz which was built by Templars and seems to be the only surviving example after the order was so cruelly pursued and its churches demolished. It used to host even a piece of the True Cross as the name implies. it is a very unusual building built around a round central round room that blocks the view across the church.  This makes it quite hard to imagine how they may have used the space for services.  A little further on at the tip of the Alcazar are two more monasteries that are more important for what they contain then for their architecture. But they are closeby and they make a nice finish to this walk along the river and the town hill. Just the changing views on the Alcazar make this walk alone worthwhile.

While not all the mentioned buildings are equally important, at least three of them seem very essential for the city: El Parral Is certainly the most important monastery of the city beside San Antonio and its church is much more impressive than the latter’s. The church of Vera Cruz is so unusual in shape and interesting through its history that this could even make a possible candidate for a new inscription. The same seems true for the Mint since well kept industrial buildings of that age are both rare and highly valued. Why they were overlooked by the town committee and by ICOMOS and UNESCO seems quite a riddle. The only reasonable explanation would be that the city planned to launch another nomination. But of this I have never seen a hint and it seems unlikely since Segovia has already packed very various elements into its WHS. The core zone obviously just follows the old city walls and extends to the full length of the aqueduct but this does definitely not justice to the very special extra muros buildings.