As someone who loves Spain as much as I say that I do, I know remarkably little of its history apart from the major events. Thus, the primary factor I considered when selecting trous was possible historic connections available as day trips from Madrid. Thus, I chose the Avila and Segovia tour for less than auspicious reasons. Even though I had no specific reason prior to the tour for visiting those cities, the tour provided reasons in abundance.
The adventure began the night before as I attempted to reschedule my train to Seville. Since the tour description did not include an estimate return time, I guessed as well as I could when purchasing the ticket. I should have messaged the tour company back when I booked the tour. When I discovered the tight connection, I knew I might have some difficulties. Ordinarily, I would just take a later train but Renfe, the Spanish train service, had a different policy for their “flexible” tickets than the other companies I used. Additionally, raileurope.com, the site through which I purchased the tickets, had no method to contact them. So, I packed everything up into the big bag, brought it with me, and secured it on the floor beside me, hoping that we would arrive back in Madrid with enough time for me to get to the train station.
When we arrived in Avila and got our bluetooth earpieces, we headed to the first stop, the historic walls of Avila by walking first through a gift shop type location for the purpose of using the facilities before starting the walking tour.
While there, I noticed souvenir items so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity, a wise choice, learning from the previous day. As I looked at the various items, I made a connection that I should have made when I first chose this tour. Years ago during while working on my Masters’ degree in History, I took a class on the Reformation where we had to write a paper, a book report of sorts, on a prominent figure of the Reformation or CounterReformation. I chose St. Teresa of Avila. Yup. Took me long enough.
From the gift shop we walked a short distance to the walls, a UNESCO World Heritage site. These walls are the longest medieval city walls still standing anywhere in Europe. I felt positively giddy as we climbed those historic stairs of uneven height and texture. A handful of abulatory-challenged members of our group complained but I continued to make my way up as Quickly as I could. We ascended only two floors but I loved the view from the top of that wall. I wanted to walk the entire length of the wall available to the public but our guide, much older than the guide from the previous day, limited our exploration. I took plenty of pictures, of course.
After descending to the ground, we headed to our second and final stop in Avila, the Convento de Santa Teresa, a convent built over the birthplace of its namesake saint. The convent and courtyard did not stand out.
The historical significance came from its connection to Teresa.
In a side reliquary chamber, a small room which made for tight quarters, the convent sold religious literature and other trinkets in the front half. In the bak half they placed their morbid claim to fame, one of Teresa’s fingers mummified and on display. I gazed on this relic, revered by so many, and pondered the distortion this finger represented. This preserved human tissue distorts the normal function and appearance. The veneration so many ofer distorts true worship, placing so much weight on something that will eventually crumble to dust.
From there we boarded the bus again to head over to Segovia where we would get lunch. As we approached the city, our guide began to discuss the lunch that came with the tour, the lunch option I had not purchased, in a way that made it seem a requirement that we would have to purchase anyway. I started to get concerned and would learn later that I was not alone in those concerns.
We got off the bus and headed towards Old Town, having gotten dropped off near the bus stop. The guide kept talking about the meal, making me increasingly nervous, until we got outside the restaurant. Right before the guide entered the building, I finally got his attention and asked if the lunch was mandatory. He told me “of course it’s not” but in a manner that indicated that I would make a less than intelligent decision to do otherwise. My question ended up prompting him to share that information with the group along with seemly simple instructions on where to meet up with the group after we finished our meal.
As I turned to walk up the hill a little further, a girl next to me thanked me for asking. She’d worried too. We ended up hanging out for that whole hour, eating some delicious kebab meal in the shadow of Roman aqueducts and just chatting. While I don’t remember her name, I remember that she’s Canadian and was in Spain for a quick vacation while based in London for work.
All too quickly the time arrived for us to head up to Segovia’s cathedral. I got in my head that we would start heading that direction at 1pm instead of getting to the cathedral at that time so I stopped and purchased some souvenirs and took copious photos of the aforementioned aqueducts. We then started walking up the street expecting to see the cathedral at any moment based on our guides directions. Instead, we kept walking and one o’clock passed. We both wondered, while laughing, if we had taken a wrong turn. (It’s so much nicer to get lost with a friend.) Thankfully, my new Canadian friend had data on her phone so a quick check showed that we still headed the right way. When we finally saw the cathedral ahead of us, complete with a movie set outfront, we both laughed at our guide’s interpretation of a short walk.
While we found the cathedral with relative ease, the vast space the cathedral occupied provided several unintentional hiding places for our guide and the rest of our group. Using our bluetooth earpieces we played a lot of hot and cold, following the strength of our audio connections unsuccessfully a couple times before finally finding the group.
I laughed so much in the process that I did not really mind missing all but the last few minutes of the less than scintillating narration from our guide. Just one more reason to go back!
Once finished at the cathedral, we made our way to the Alcazar. The term denotes a fortress built by the Moors. The location first housed a Roman fort, of which nothing remains above ground. The building currently on the site first began to be built during the Moorish era and then reached its full extent after the Christian rulers took back the city and transformed the fortress to a royal palace. While making our way to the entrance, we passed archaeological excavations currently in progress adding to the trove of historical knowledge.
I loved seeing historical discovery in action as well as on display in the well-curated and well-preserved museum. The view from the “balcony” on the far side also took my breath away. The fortress did not derive its location high up on the edge of the mountain by happenstance.
Although the tour officially ended with the visit to the Alcazar, my adventures continued long into the night. I knew I had inadvertently cut it too close with my transfer form the tour bus to the train station but I had exhausted all other option I knew available. All I could do was pray that the return journey took a shorter time than the outbound journey and that I could minimize my travel time from the bus drop off to the station.
Murphy’s Law dictated that we hit city rush hour traffic, along with the following series of events. I could not find the correct metro station once I got off the bus. My card would not cooperate for me to purchase a ticket. I could not find the platform I thought I needed or the one that would take me directly to teh station as assured by a friendly metro attendant. My stop dropped me off several blocks from the station which I attempted to run with my massive bag but succeeded only in getting myself drenched in sweat. I arrived mere minutes after my train departed. The customer service people could offer me a replacement ticket, for a fee, on a train the following morning even though two more trains to Seville still departed that night. They would not budge or offer any other solutions besides purchasing another ticket which they could not help me do there. While waiting in the ticket sales line, I missed the next train and discovered that the advertised 7:30pm train did not actually exist; the departure screen had a malfunction. I finally got another ticket on a train that left two and a half hours later and would get me to Seville after midnight, far outside my comfort zone.
Needless to say, as I sat and ate supper feeling physically and emotionally exhausted, I hit the lowest point of the trip, something I did not put on my Instagram post for that day. (Beware social media curation.) AFter feeling a bit sorry for myself, I snapped out of the indulgence, prepped things as well as I could for the next day making special note for future trips there to find out tour end times so I can choose appropriate train times. I did manage to make it to my flat in Seville via taxi for safety reasons and fell into bed almost immediately and slept nearly as soon as my head hit the pillow.