Handpicked experience · Madrid
Madrid, Spain
Two walled cities north of Madrid: one whose cathedral doubles as a bastion in the most complete medieval wall in Europe, the other holding a Roman aqueduct assembled without a drop of mortar.
Book with The Trip Club and journey back through the historical past of Spain on this guided tour.
Experience the magic of the magnificent Castle (Alcázar) of Segovia.
Gaze in awe at the impressive Roman aqueduct of Segovia, built without a drop of mortar or cement.
Discover the 6th Century fortified city of Avila that is the epitome of old Spain.
Photo stops at Ávila's complete medieval walls and its main square
Guided walks through the old centres of both cities
The Roman aqueduct close to, and the wide outlooks towards the Alcázar
Time of your own in Segovia for lunch and wandering
A comfortable coach between Madrid, Ávila and Segovia
Ávila and Segovia sit an hour or so apart on the high plateau north-west of Madrid, and each is defined by a piece of engineering. One is a circuit of eleventh-century walls that has never been breached by a road; the other is a first-century aqueduct that carried the city's water until living memory. Both are worth the drive for reasons that go beyond the photographs.
A coach north across the plain to the walled city, a guided walk there, then east to the second town for the aqueduct, the old streets and time of your own before the return.
The fact that stops people in the square. Around twenty thousand granite blocks stand in a double tier of arches nearly thirty metres high at the centre, and there is no mortar anywhere in it. Every block is cut so that its own weight and the thrust of its neighbours hold the whole structure in compression. It was built under the Roman emperors in the first century and it was still delivering water to the city in the second half of the twentieth.
The part nobody puts on a postcard. By the late twentieth century exhaust emissions from vehicles driving beneath and beside the arches were chemically attacking the granite, which was also shedding grains from centuries of weathering. Traffic was rerouted away from it and a long conservation programme began. What you are looking at has been more endangered in the last eighty years than in the previous nineteen hundred.
What makes the first city unusual. Its circuit runs two and a half kilometres with eighty-eight towers and has survived essentially complete, which is rare enough. But look at the eastern side: the apse of the cathedral is not merely near the wall, it is one of its turrets, a solid stone drum built into the defences. The church is a bastion. Look closely at the masonry elsewhere and you will find Roman gravestones and older carved animal figures reused as rubble.
A piece of history the city was slow to acknowledge. Teresa, born here in 1515 and the most famous reformer of her order, came from a family of Jewish converts. Her grandfather was tried by the Inquisition in Toledo and made to process through the streets in penance before the family bought its way into minor nobility and moved. The connection was suppressed for centuries and only firmly established by scholars in the twentieth. It changes how her writing on interior refuge reads.
Worth a small correction. The fortress on the spur at the far end of the second town looks like an illustration, and it is regularly said to have inspired a famous animated castle — a claim repeated everywhere and documented nowhere. What is documented is that the building burned in 1862 and the sharp slate spires that give it that silhouette are part of the rebuilding afterwards. The fairytale is Victorian.
The guided walking and the transport are included; admission to the fortress, the cathedrals and the museums is not, unless it was stated when you booked. Carry euros, and decide in advance which single interior you want, because there is not time for several.
A practical note that catches people out. The first city stands at over eleven hundred metres and is the highest provincial capital in Spain. It is routinely several degrees colder than Madrid, the wind comes across open plain with nothing to stop it, and standing on an exposed rampart in March is a different proposition from walking a Madrid street.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Every one of its roughly twenty thousand granite blocks is cut so that its own weight and the thrust of its neighbours hold the structure in compression. Nothing binds them. It was built in the first century and still carried water into the twentieth.
Yes, recently. Vehicle emissions beneath and beside the arches were chemically attacking the granite by the late twentieth century, on top of centuries of weathering. Traffic was rerouted and a long conservation programme followed.
They survive essentially complete over two and a half kilometres with eighty-eight towers, and the cathedral's apse is built as one of the turrets. The church is literally part of the defences.
She came from Jewish converts. Her grandfather was tried by the Inquisition in Toledo and paraded in penance before the family bought minor nobility and moved. The connection was suppressed for centuries and only established firmly by twentieth-century scholars.
It is said everywhere and documented nowhere. What is certain is that the building burned in 1862 and the pointed slate spires giving it that silhouette date from the rebuilding afterwards.
No, unless it was stated when you booked. The guided walking and transport are covered; entry to the fortress, cathedrals and museums is settled on the day.
Colder than Madrid, consistently. Ávila stands above eleven hundred metres, is the highest provincial capital in Spain, and the wind crosses open plain with nothing to break it.