Sunday 09th July 2006 11:30:00 PM DAY 6: Segovia & Madrid "In a kingdom far, far away in Segovia, high above the mountains there stood a castle called Alcazar. Legends said that the sleeping beauty was kept waiting there for all her life. Prince Vince, armed with his trustworthy weapon the Nikonion Dee-LXX and his Royal Steed aka the "very fast" Spanish Regional Train, travelled far and wide from the Madrid City to Segovia. On his way he went pass the "Gate with Many Holes", battled the intense and scourging heat of hell and almost got tricked by the "cursed map of forever get lost" given by the enemies-in-disguise. Luckily on his way he was aided by Sir Shang the holy knight of the Chinese Empire. Together they joined forces and battled their way through and towards the legendary Alcazar........ only to find out that the Sleeping Beauty has emmigrated to Walt DisneyLand a long long time ago!" 
Day 2 in Madrid, still eating the Danish pastries, no OJ as it could not survive the heat of Madrid without something called a fridge (should have bought those that have tons of preservatives, right?) Today was Sunday, and there was a massive flea market in Madrid (only opened on sundays), so before going to Segovia I quickly made a detour to the market. El Rastro was described as the biggest and best market in Madrid. It spanned multiple streets from the top of the hill and all the way down, often referred to have a "thriving mass of vendors, buyers and pickpockets".... What I found was.... a lack of all!(because I was EARLY! @9am) Not many merchants, not many buyers, and couldn't even spot any pickpockets (not that they were easy to spot) ... however, I saw plenty of local police, chatting up to those vendors who were just setting up the store... many policemen were surrounding one owner... not sure what they said to him. (could that be the famous statement: "any spare change"?)
It was really a flea market selling old stuff, clothes to the locals instead of tourist-oriented... the only interesting stall was the selling of all those army uniforms and helmets. I really wanted to ask them why they were selling German uniforms... but resisted just in case they would gave me a free demonstration of their army knifes free-of-charge! 
Since there was nothing much of an interest, I continued doing my photo-hunt of taking photos of different street signs. In the old part of Madrid, almost all the streets signs were drawn up as beautiful icons each showing the meaning of the street name. So if you were bored like me, you could do the "collection" along the way... it was more fun than the treasure hunt. 
Since I could not access the Internet last night or the night before, I could not look up the timetable for the trains to Segovia. Luckily, Vicky told me before... "Don't worry, I remember the train departs every 2 hours, 09:00, 11:00, 13:00, etc"... With such assurance, I arrived at the train station at around 10:00, thinking there should be enough time to get the tickets, etc. for the 11:00 train. Well, it turned out that indeed there was plenty of time... Vicky was right about the 2 hours interval, but the starting point was wrong. The train departed every 10:00, 12:00, 14:00... the moral of the story? Vince, don't be a lazy bugger and do your own homework! As there was plenty of time left, I could do a bit of exploration of the station. Estacion de Atocha was one of the two main train stations in Madrid connecting between the nearby suburbs with Cercanias (regional trains) and also serving as the terminus for inter-city trains including the high-speed AVE to Sevlla. It turned out that Atocha was more famous because of the Madrid Bombing in 11 March 2004 where 191 people died and 1700+ wounded. It was one of the worst terrorist attacks in the Western World since 9-11. "Fortunately", at that time I was too busy in finding the right ticket booth than to remember that. 
With all these different types of trains leaving for destinations all over Spain, it was not surprising that the station had at least 3 sets of ticket counters and 2+ information centres scattered throughout. Now, the people at the ticket booths could not speak English whereas the information centres were full of tourists who could only speak English. So at the end I decided to try my luck and just said "Segovia" over one of the ticket counters (a bit like when you only need to say a single word "Money" when you try to rob the bank) and so got myself the tickets to Segovia. (EUR 9.9, same day return) The next step was to find out which platform the train would arrive. (Remember that I forfeited the chance of waitng for an hour to get to the information counter) There was a gigantic electronic signboard describing all the trains leaving and arriving and.... Surprise! There was not a trace of the word "Segovia" on it! Up till now I had never thought that boarding a train in the Western World would be that much of a pain. It was the 2nd time I regretted of not taking a bus instead... (The 1st time was when I arrived at 10:00 to find out I had to wait for a 12:00 train; which I could use an extra hour in the flea market instead if I knew the "correct" schedule beforehand) Having consulted the horoscope and applyed my detective skills and logic reasoning with lateral thinking and some scenario-based problem-solving techniques I finally worked out that the magic number was platform #1. Without a second thought, I hurriedly swipe the ticket and went through the gate.... It was 11:00 and I already had walked back-and-forth between the platform and the waiting room for a zillion times. Life was boring while waiting for a train, and even worse when there were no shops inside the platform and nothing inside the waiting room besdes the TV showing the next train's info. The only thing "exciting" in that hour was the encounter in the WC. ******* Warning! Not for the Light-Hearted ******* There was actually a toilet in the departure area but it was so concealed that it really took me a while to find it. (The waiting room and the ticket gates were on top, with escalators descending down to the platform below. Now in between the waiting room level and the platform there was a mid-level and it turned out that at the far end were another set of "exit-only" ticket gates with the WC next to them. This area was so dimly lit you couldn't see from afar. Since there was nothing better to do, I went inside the toilet. Luckily a train just arrived and an old man went along with me. Inside the toilets were two men occupying the first two urinals at the time I went in. So I went in and took the third one. During the process I noticed the man next to me was giving eye signals to the man on the first urinal, who obviously was looking left-and-right and was not the slightest bit in doing his "business" there. With my basic instinct I quickly pulled out of the toilet as soon as I could. (Even for an un-alert person like me I could still sense the danger at that moment!) As I said I was lucky because there was an old man who went in with me at the same time; maybe that was the reason I was saved. Thank God! As mentioned before, this station was so busy with so many trains coming and going every minute and yet the station designers still couldn't think of building more platforms and tracks. As a result, a single platform was shared amongst many trains. If you boarded the train 2 minutes early or later, you could be going somewhere else! So you really had to watch the signboard and also checked the front of the train. You only had about 2 minutes to decide to board or not! 2 hours of train journey. Got myself a window seat, sat opposite to a little girl who liked to kick me whenever she felt like it. (or got excited or bored) My neighbour was her elder sister, not pretty and even if she was I wouldn't dare to chat up to her as their dad (looked like a Spanish Mafia guy) was right opposite to her. So the entire journey I was "cornered" by this family and my only interest was staring at the occasional black bulls grazing upon the grass in the green fields outside. It was so easy to make money in Madrid! A lady street performer dressed in some medieval costume boarded the train with us in Atocha and during the brief ride, she played an act (?) of a play (I think!) for about 3 minutes and then amongst the applause she came up to everybody and started collecting money from us. (More efficient than the ticket conductor in collecting tickets!) A lot of the tourists actually paid for that! She left in the next stop and could repeat the same thing again on a returning train ..... Hmmm....Maybe on my way back I could do a few rounds of Shao-Lin Kung Fu and earned my trip back! ^_^ Well, if my Chinese Kung-fu could not impress, maybe singing this would: 少林功夫醒... 好好野. 少林功夫勁... 係好哽. 我係鐵頭功... 無敵鐵頭功. 你係金剛腿... 我係金剛腿
Lunch was eaten on train. It was a grand feast of a cold sandwich and a bottle of water (both obtained from the Atocha station's vending machines. EUR 2.1) Once arrived in Segovia train station, I immediately looked for bus no. 2 as described by LP. Guess what? NO bus no. 2 in the bus stop. What's worse, just like in Toledo's bus port, there was no tourist information counter there in the train station and therefore no map or any information could be found. With great difficulty (remember no one could speak English), I finally found a bus route that had a stop in Acueducto. (All other names in all other bus routes could not be recognized) I finally arrived at Acueducto at 14:30 (After 30 minutes of waiting for the bus for a journey of 5 minutes.... reason: today was Sunday!) 
Acueducto (Roman Aqueduct) was one of the most recognizable symbol of Segovia. Built in the 1st century AD. Now it was 728m long and made up of 163 arches. At the highest point (ie where the Plaza de Azoguejo was) it was 28m high. 
The Acueducto marked the entrance to the old Segovia. The whole area was set high on a rocky spur and surrounded by the two rivers. The shape was often compared to a ship, with Alcazar on its sharp end as the prow, the pinnacles of the Cathedral as the masts and the Acueducto trailing behind like the rudder. The tourist office was conveniently situated in Plaza de Azoguejo and it was a proper office with a 3D model display showing the entire area of Segovia. As it was nearly 15:00, I quickly got a map and immediately set off towards my primary objective - the Alcazar. It was in this office that I regretted again of not taking the bus. (The person at the counter told me that the bus station was very near to old Segovia than the train station, and the the buses departed every half an hour and the journey only took 1 hour........ Too bad I had already got my return train ticket!) 
Unlike Toledo, the streets inside Segovia was more straight forward and you only needed to follow the street in one direction. After passing Plaza de San Martin (where a statue of Juan Bravo was... supposed to be a local hero) and Plaza Mayor (there is one in every city!) I found myself at the doorsteps of the Cathedral of Segovia. 
The Cathedral was the last Gothic Cathedral in Spain and took almost 200 years to complete (talking about the effectiveness of the Spanards) and it was one of the three must-see sites in Segovia. It was also the Cathedral where Queen Isabella was crowned. Having said that, I found myself to be fully "saturated" of cathedrals for the past few days, and decided to skip it at the moment. So I continued until I reached the end of the road....the park where Alcazar was situated. 
Alcazar de Segovia was famous for two things: 1. Marriage location of Ferndinard II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469. This duo (consider a merger in ruling a kingdom, not very often you hear of that!) was responsible for the reunification of Spain and the drive out of the last Moorish King Boabdil in Granada in 1492, thus finished the "Reconquista". 2. The exterior of the castle (Alcazar) gave Walt Disney the vision of his Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland. (so rumors said) 
In front of Alcazar I finally met another traveller since Barcelona! Yes, finding and meeting friends in Spain were not as easy as I initially thought. To qualify: 1) They must not be couples as they would be too busy with themselves. Same applied to a pack of people. Conclusion: Single Asian travellers who could speak English or Cantonese and were more interested in sight-seeing than shopping.... What were the chances for that? Well, Shang was a mechanical engineer from Mainland China who could speak English very well. He has been seconded to Madrid to study the wind-powered electric plants in Spain. So he was a single, Asian who could communicate........... the only drawback was that it was a he! Although Shang was not a pretty girl as I had hoped, having someone to talk to and share travel stories was great... it was just like I had been dumb for a few days and suddenly I could speak again! He told me many interesting things in Madrid, and also in his research in the differences between the Chinese and the Spanish girls!
Since he was a nice friend, so together we toured inside Alcazar. As a castle, Alcazar of Segovia was a lot smaller than those castles in England but at least it still looked like an European castle (compared to the Alcazar in Sevilla that was more like a Sultan's Palace) There was an impressive display of some Spanish medieval arms and weapons. Again, the main problem of touring any museum in Spain was that all the descriptions were in Spanish... which gave us a perfect excuse to shorten the touring time. 
After the visit I went to the souvenir shop and found that I had lost sight of him when I came out. Since I realized he couldn't have been kidnapped, (even though he was quite handsome but definitely did not look rich) so I left Alcazar and made my way back to the Acueducto. On the way back I passed by a witch museum. At the entrance was a picture of a woman, which I was not sure if it was the picture of a witch or a person that was bewitched... either way the look was definitely no way near to Emma Watson's (aka Hermione Granger of Harry Potter), so I decided to keep the entrance fee in my wallet and moved on. 
Now that I had a map of Segovia and my digital compass, (ie my Casio watch) I decided to walk my way back to the train station. (At that time I had about 1 hour to spare before the next train at 18:50) 'That should be plenty of time, I thought to myself' I was too naive... the map was simplied and the compass was not accurate enough. One wrong choice in a star-shaped junction and I went the wrong way. The road I took was a long winding road with no street sign and no junction so I did not realize I took the wrong road until after 10 minutes later when the road finally crossed another. As I was going downhill previously it was pretty tough to climb back all the way up. So I had to make a detour to return to the correct route. For the very last time today, I regretted of taking the train to Segovia! After guessing (the map was simplified!) and running and asking I finally made it back to the train station with 10 minutes to spare before the next train. There I saw Shang standing there on the platform. It turned out that while I was in the souvenir shop in Alcazar he went to the tower upstairs. (through another entrance right next to the exit) He waited for me up there for 10 minutes and told me the view there was fantastic and it was so good that I should now skip this train and go back there to have a look! What? Walk another 30 minutes back up and 30 minutes back down (if not lost) and wait another two hours for the next train?...... NO WAY! I really had enough in this "Lost in Segovia" experience! So I took this 18:50 train with Shang back to Madrid. It turned out that Shang didn't do too well this morning neither.... he boarded the 10:00 train two minutes earlier and realized he got on the wrong train. (He was lucky it was a circle line that he returned to Atocha later, if not he would have wasted the whole day in another city) Finally he managed to catch the 12:00 train to Segovia (ie the same train as mine) Shang got off in Chamartin station (another equally big train stationin Madrid at the north) and I returned to Atocha. Since my train to Cordoba also departed from this station I decided to go and check out at the information counter. The lady there could speak good English and gave me an offer of 3 different types of trains that could take me to Cordoba. Although expensive, I opted for AVE. She told me if I wanted to go and get the tickets I could walk across to the ticket office next door to buy them. As I needed to specify the exact train I wanted (ie with the departure time), I decided to leave and buy the ticket tomorrow to give me more flexibility. (I found out that this decision actually costed me tremendously tomorrow!) Dinner was finally taken in a restaurant in Sol, near the Real Madrid Shop (I originally wanted to go to a cheap 3 course meal restaurant recommended by LP... after wasting 30 minutes, I found that either the editor was drunk while eating at that time or the inflation rate in Spain successfully exceeded China's... the price was nowhere cheap!) So this restaurant served the same types of Paella as seen in Barcelona, Madrid and Toledo (from OK Paella) and this time I chose the Paella Mixta instead. (EUR 12.25 including a glass of coke) Honestly it was better than the black Arroz Negro before.... but just marginally better. After this I decided I am not ok with OK Paella anymore. I went back to the hotel just in time to watch the penalty kick shootout between France and Italy (Worldcup Final) and was really surprised that Zidane was nowhere to be seen during the penalty kicks...Well, France lost... I was actually surprised that the French really could not shoot PKs.... My foot prints: Estacion de Atocha (Train Station), Acueducto, Plaza de Azoguejo, Plaza de San Martin, Plaza Mayor, Cathedral de Segovia, Alcazar de Segovia, Gran Vie (to find the not-so-cheap restaurant), Sol Stay: Lisboa Hostal Madrid (EUR 39, single room) P.S. Only when I came back did I realize that Zidane got sent out after his famous head-butt in the Final.  | |||
