Day 4: Segovia

I took the 9am train to Segovia today.  We went through a tunnel shortly after leaving Cercedilla and went from sun to overcast grey skies.  My Fuenfria is affecting the weather!  It remained fairly cold walking around town, I wish I had my big-girl fleece with me but I had left my backpack at the pension until it was time to check in.

Segovia has 73 historic landmarks, according to the handy-dandy tourist map, but I just went into two: the church and the Alcazar (castle), wich was well worth it.  It juts out on a promontory at the far end of town, and has a bit of a fiarytale castle look to it.  It dates from the 11-19th C. and during the Middle Ages it housed the Castilian monarchs so had sufficiently impressive throne rooms and royal statues.

 

 There's lots of bars and tourist shops here and I found myself window-shopping even though there´s no way in Christendom that I´m gonig to add more weight to my pack.  I´m already eating peanut butter every day for lunch!  I figure it weighs about 8 kilos, so it´s quite heavy to lift but after 10mins or so walking it feels okay. I once had this much extra around my waistline, after all!!  I do notice that I´m a bit clumsier walking through, and that my balance is more unsure - I have to be even more cautious crossing creeks or on uneven footing.  It should be interesting how different it feels tomorrow with just food & water.

Although the Tourist office is not supposed to recommend hotels, I think the guy put a little extra circle around the El Gato pension, so that´s where I booked in for two nights.  Very clean, own bathroom, TV, and a fridge! All for €25! I will stock it with wine and snacks today (and salad and milk and yogurt and tomatoes and all that hard-to-find-in-restaurant stuff) so I can collapse after hiking Fuenfria tomorrow.  I'm quite pleased to already have my room sorted for tomorrow.

I'm wandering around town, just looking at buildings. The sun has come out in full force and I think I might be getting sun-burnt.  Everything is so much prettier now I feel I should run around and re-take all my photos!

Random Thoughts:
From my 2 train rides I deduce that each kilometer I walk is worth about €0.10...

Clock says it's 8:12pm but I would have guessed 5pm by the sun and level of activity outside - how's that happen? I don't think I'll make the 6:20am train...

So I ended buying a corkscrew in Madrid. Just couldn't live without it.  Not only is it made of light plastic, it has an actual, usable, proper thin knife blade - why don't we have that?

All winter I was worrying about the soles of my old shoes wearing out; looks like my inside back-of-heels might go first.  Duct tape to the rescue!?

Pilgrim Notes:  as noted by others, the tourist office is at the base of aqueduct where it meets the hill the old town is on.  It has a list of accommodation, a nice city map also with a list, plus a Camino brochure that shows some albergues 2kms outside of town and youth hostel that I passed on walk in from train station.  The El Gato is located on Plaza del Salvador, which is up the aqueduct from the tourist office (before the old town) so it'll be much closer to the train station for the morning and also for my arrival from walking from Cercedilla. If I can get a pic of it on the map I'll post it. Ph: 921-423-244, mobile: 678-405-079.

I'm not sure how the marking is coming into town, I'll find out tomorrow and update these notes.  I have seen the occasional blue camino directional signs, but took a photo of the street map outside the train station and it seems to have the Way on it marked in red.

I "heart" my iPhone! I email, read books, do crosswords, take notes, check weather, and can even make voice recordings (but I'm a little self-conscious talking to myself). I have the cell & data features turned off so it really is an iTouch but almost all hotels so far have had free "wee-fee", else I'll ask in the bars I pop in to.  Colmenar had free wifi outside the ayunmiento, as did Mazanares (but I didn't have the code for the latter). Only issue is I can only post one photo per blog entry, so need to find land-based Internet for that.

The library in old town Segovia has free Internet, on Calle Juan de Bravo, the main drag up to the cathedral, located just past St Martin church (#10 on map), but I couldn't download pics from camera. I will try the pay internet place right across square from Tourist Office, above Farggi cafe ion 2nd floor.  Yup, €0.70 per hour, so I loaded more photos.

"X" marks Bar/Pension El Gato
dotted is the Camino