Weekend Excursion to Madrid and Segovia!! :)

Friday March 5^th- To make up for not having my laptop during Madrid/Segovia weekend I ended up writing down the events - so it's way more detailed :)

Today our CIDE program took a bus from San Mames (bus station in Bilbao) to Madrid-about a 5 hours bus ride. We made one pit stop at a small hotel (compared to the size of our 2 buses and about 100 students).

Once we got into the city of Madrid-we first went to the hotel-TRYP Hoteles. It was a nice hotel, funny you would have to pay 4 euro an hour to use the Wi-Fi when at hostels it is free and cheaper to stay there. Our meals were a buffet in the hotel, it was alright and nice to eat to our own content versus being given 2 large entrees and dessert.


Afterwards we headed out to an afternoon/night of Madrid. We first went to Palacio Real (picture above) – the 3^rd largest palace in the world people were saying. It has a large plaza and the palace was on the right, the cathedral on the left. In my tour book (thanks to Donna and Jeff :)) it says you could spend a day going around the palace and admiring it-they’re right it’s gorgeous. We went inside and got to see several rooms. Absolutely incredible. We saw the room with the throne in it where the King and Queen told Columbus he could go on the voyage. Gold, beautiful frescos-extravagant. Chandeliers in almost all the rooms we saw-if not all. One large room was just for the King to get dressed in. It had grapes and vines on the walls. The walls of each room were cloth/material sewed on. And they were extravagant designs. Detail everywhere. Another room was mostly blue. Another room was made completely of porcelain-somehow attached to the wood of the walls-I don’t remember quite how now. There were beautiful statues and quite a few clocks. One was a clock face on a small-sized world within a huge statue. My Grandpa would have loved these clocks. One room I never thought I’d see in my life was the grand dining room. The table seemed to go on forever and there were so many chairs arranged on either side. Just like in the movies. There were several chandeliers in that room. –One other thing-everything was in perfect condition including the furniture. There were several stools or even sofas with fabric completely perfect-not worn or snagged or anything. We then went through several –a couple-rooms that had silver pieces in them. In one room there was what looked like a giant silver punch bowl. Next to it the plaque said the King had melted some of the silver in order to help fund the war. (Unfortunately pictures weren't allowed inside).

The hallways were tall and massive. One of the last rooms had 3 instruments, each was worth over 1 million Euros each, Euros-not USD. The room was very green. Another room was a billiard room with a pool table. We also saw the kids play room that was filled with colorful images. – Afterwards we went to La Catedral de Almudena. The current prince was married there. It was a more colorful church in the high ceilings.

We also visited Plaza de la Villa, and Plaza Mayor. In Plaza Mayor there is a huge open area. The shops/restaurants/and bars surround the Plaza. Before we had gotten to Plaza Mayor we also passed an old-fashioned market. As for where we ended-Puerta del Sol, I didn’t hear much about the significance of it. The weather since we had arrived in Madrid had been raining and pretty miserable, making it difficult to hear about the Plaza. My jeans and shoes were completely soaked. I am definitely appreciating the fact I bought a huge umbrella in Bilbao.












After Puerta del Sol our Professors let us loose to explore. Since the weather was so terrible, it was hard to be motivated to search out places. I had been hoping for Starbucks so Becca, Emily, Chrissy and I walked through a few shopping streets and went in a couple stores. When we found a Starbucks we enjoyed some drinks and warmed up. Then we sought out Puerta de Alacala (photo on right with Chrissy and Emily)-a pretty arch structure and took pictures, along with other monuments (like the Bank of Spain on the left). Earlier on the bus we had passed the large and beautiful National Library.

We then figured out our way successfully back to the hotel for the buffet dinner, talked a while and headed up to our own rooms. I spent a lot of time blow-drying my jeans and running shoes since the next day in Segovia was supposed to be winter like weather. We don’t typically get nice weather on our excursions—but we see incredible things. :)

Saturday March 6- Today we went to Segovia from Madrid—and it was absolutely incredible. The first place we went was el Acueducto—Roman Aqueduct (photos below). Absolutely incredible that it’s only rock upon rock with no cement or anything in between and it’s over 2000 years old, bringing water into the villages back when. We were able to walk up the stairs to the left of it and see them from a greater height with the mountains in the background.











One crazy thing-on the way to Segovia I fell asleep-when I woke up we had gone from rainy Madrid to a snow storm. After some distance the snow disappeared and there was only some in the mountains once we almost reached Segovia. Segovia itself had beautiful weather and blue skies. Very strange.

We then walked through some side streets to see the Cathedral of Santa Maria in Plaza Mayor. The cathedral was gorgeous and unique and I’ve never seen anything like it. We didn’t go in but the outside spoke volumes. The cathedral is Gothic style.

We went down the side streets of the cathedral and ….reached Alcazar (accent on the second a) an incredible castle (photo below on the left)-just like I’ve imagined seeing growing up on Disney movies. We went on a tour with a lady who took us through a few of the rooms. The first one had a horse and a mannequin decorated in armor. There were also children sized armor because the kids wore them at young ages to become accustomed to the weight. We then went to the Fireplace room where they ate dinner. We saw a throne—the ceilings were absolutely incredible (picture of one of the ceilings below on the right). They were extravagant. In one room there was an important item-kind of like dresser drawers but with an insane amount of hidden drawers where they would hide important documents and also transport this box, as is, with the documents hidden inside. Another room we saw was the King and Queen’s bedroom. Because the room is so large it makes the bed look small-but it wasn’t. The curtains around the bed were to keep the warm because the room could be freezing (it was chilly just standing in there). They also sewed tapestries onto the walls to help keep it warmer. Another room was the church. There was a fire in the 19^th century-all that was saved was a painting and the library books. The last room had weapons and cannons. The last place we visited was the top of the palace, in a platform ‘la torre.’ What an incredible view of Segovia, it tooks us 152 steps up a winding and narrow staircase (like in the movies) to get up there. It took a lot of work to get up and down them with the amount of people.

After Alcazar we headed back to Plaza Mayor and had lunch in a restaurant there. (Not very delicious for me-first entrée: big beans in soup = good/okay, second entrée: ..baby cow I believe? :( Dessert: Flan-very good.

Then we took off back to Madrid-again passing through a (smaller) snow storm on the way back (so weird). Once back in the city the bus would either drop you off near (but good walking distance) away from the Museum of Queen Sofia. (Museo Reina Sofia) or the bus was heading back to the hotel. We went and saw paintings by Picasso, like Guernica. Guernica is a small town near Bilbao that was bombed in 1936 by communist Franco. The piece was kept in New York until Franco lost power and was then brought to Madrid. We also saw paintings by Dali and one set of paintings/drawings by Goya. (Sidenote-on the way to this museum we saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier).
One of Picasso's pieces below, we were able to take pictures in this museum, except of the Guernica painting:

Afterwards Becca, Joanna, Chrissy and I walked to see Teatro Real and saw Palacio STA. Cruz as well-right near Plaza Mayor (the have a lot of Plaza Mayor’s in Spain). The theatre’s front and back weren’t incredible-but we took pictures in front of and of each other in front of Palacio Real. (Which was across from the theatre). We had not seen this side of the Palace the day before.


I was disappointed in their souveniors-their shot glasses mostly said España on them not Madrid and not many had the Palace on them (none actually) or their postcards weren’t very diversified.

And besides the Palacio Real – honestly I wasn’t really impressed with Madrid, but yes it was fun and an experience. And you can’t go to Spain for 4 months and not see Madrid.

Anyhow after the Teatro Real we headed back to the hotel and ate dinner.

Sunday March 7^th This day was pretty straight forward and not a lot to tell. We woke up, ate breakfast, put our luggage in the bus and headed to Museo del Prado. We went on a guided tour and saw amazing works of art including: Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez, one of Spain’s ‘greatest Golden Age artists. And many more pieces by him, we also saw many Goya paintings, paintings by El Greco, The Garden of Earthly Delights and Table of the Seven Deadly Sins by Bosch and a painting by Rembrandt. We went back to the hotel and ate lunch and made the long bus ride back to Bilbao. And I think we were all happy to get out of the big city and go to our current homes here in Bilbao :)