2007:   Where We Stayed, Ate, Went

 ***Where We Stayed We chose our usual, a medium-priced hostal, Hostal Don Jaime because it was  in the residential neighborhood I had lived in in 1971, very close to the Aqueduct. It was clean and quiet, not particularly friendly or helpful at the front desk (except one cshy lerk named Africa), but I'd stay here again for old time's sake in the old neighborhood.

***Where We Ate We'd like to mention these places

Narizotas - If my vegetarian husband's gazpacho tasted suspiciously of ham and my risotto was overpriced, and the place I once knew as a nightclub was now a tourist restaurant, still the patio was airy, our sweet waiter remembered the place as a nightclub and helped us get reseated inside when a storm came up suddenly, and the bottle of Segovian Crianza was underpriced and yum-oh.

La Codorniz - A mixed bag, this place. The waitstaff was rude in that nose in the air Castillian way, wouldn't get us the missing menu pages, took our order only after everyone else in the place was SERVED. The Castillian soup with egg was good, the chicken with potatoes average, but the Crianza saved the day, as did a wonderful couple next to us from Burgos, who told wonderful stories.

El Candido - The old, traditional, beloved, where I had Thanksgiving Dinner in 1971. Paul and I waited till our last night and dressed up to go, though no one else does these days. Mr. Candido (the son) still greets people at the front door, and he sent us upstairs, where we sat next to a wonderful couple named Merche and Juan, from Pamplons, and I ate the traditional meal of toston (suckling pig) and salad and Baked Alaska and Paul rooted around for some non-meat items and shared the bottle of Crianza with me.

 Meson de Candido: Juanjo & Merche, Paul & I, dark & fuzzy: maybe crianza?

Also:La Colonia was a nice spot for a spot of tea, and the bakery named Limon Y Menta (Lemon and Mint) had great everything, including the local Torta de Ponche. Ladreda 25, once a classy discoteque, was now a pretty depressing bar.

***Where We Went

It's a shame that everyone these days does Segovia as a day-trip. It's really worth staying longer, especially if you are a walker. The more you walk, the more you find that isn't listed in tour guides.

Museums and Exhibits

House of Antonio Machado - I had visited this as a student with our class, but it is definitely more developed now, with many photos, objects, texts, and a lovely entryway and bookstore. Our beautiful tourguide was bored and rude and made a point of telling us she would be getting out of there in a few weeks, and the bookstore people were similarly unhelpful. A family of three who toured with us were great, and the Machado story more fully told these days in this old house than in '71.

La Juderia and Centro Didactico de la Juderia The old Jewish neighborhood of Segovia has been greatly developed. On Saturday night, I actually heard Sabbath being observed, and along the old walls which are being restored, we saw a wonderful exhibit of photos and texts on the Jewish presence in Segovia. Our favorite Turismo employee, NOELIA GOZALO SANZ, was working there the day we visited, as she had been working the day before in the Tourism Office, the one smiling helpful person in a room of scowling bureaucrats. She is graduating soon: someone hire her! She is the best tourism associate I met in Spain.

Architecture

Aqueduct What can I can say about this structure that hasn't been said and I haven't paid tribute to in my children's play titled Talk to the Moon? It never stops thrilling me, in photo or in fact. We chatted with Taiwanese Tourism students from its heights and saw a Roman Festival going on that weekend at its foot. Also at the foot of the aqueduct was a very reasonable internet cafe where I often met up with a group of students from an Indiana college who are in Segovia for the year. Listening to them was deja vu. I also went looking for the apartment I lived in and found it rather unchanged except now it was government housing and no one I knew lived there.

Alcazar This too, is a place that I can't add anything new about, just my same old warm fuzzy memories about getting locked up here one night in '71 when we lingered watching sunset. And many walks in and around it, back then and during this recent trip. This time I knew about the church of Vera Cruz, which you can see from the Alcazar, and on one very early morning sunrise walk, I saw air balloons bobbing around the fortress. This time, I went on the tour:

Statues Three new statues have been erected since I lived in Segovia:

  • Romulus & Remus, Italy's gift on Segovia's 2,000th anniversary
  • Mr. Candido (wielding a plate to cut a piglet)
  • Marazuela, the folk musician I met 11/21/71 (see journal--->).