I have reached the halfway point of my study abroad experience in Spain! Midterms this week weren’t too difficult, so this weekend I took a few day trips with both my program as a whole and with friends!
First, the entire program took a day trip to Segovia. This is a medieval town with a Roman aqueduct and a beautiful castle. The aqueduct is presumed to have been built in the early second or third century CE, and it remains a marvel. The original structure ran for 14 kilometers from the mountains to the valley where the city lies, where the power of gravity and engineering brought a steady stream of freshwater along the top of the aqueduct. There are plenty of local legends about it, which our wonderful tour guide explained as we walked through the medieval town.
The second half of the tour was spent in the Alcázar of Segovia. ‘Alcázar’ is a word derived from Arabic with no direct translation into English. The moat-surrounded Alcázar of Segovia is filled with shining suits of armor and medieval weaponry straight out of a fairytale, which reference the palace’s history as a fortress during the 700 years of conquest and reconquest between Muslim and Christian kingdoms in the 8th to 15th centuries. Our tour group climbed to the top of the tower and got some amazing views!
The next day, my friends and I took a trip to Valencia, Spain on the Mediterranean coast where we spent the day at the beach! It was my first time at the Mediterranean, and I was pleasantly surprised by the humidity and the water temperature (warm!). We got in several hours of swimming and sunbathing, and I had time to build a castle of my own (out of sand)! On Sunday, we took the train into Madrid to watch the World Cup Final, which was an incredible experience! ¡Viva España!
