More castles and more Madrid

Mar 16/07

We finally left Portugal, but with a quick trip up to Porto before leaving. We took an early train up north, and got there around 12:00. We had the afternoon to take a boat tour on the river, and visit a port wine cellar. Itw as interesting, and the river ride was beautiful. Then in the evening, we jumped back on the train for an overnight to Madrid.

Mar 17/07

We got in early, and headed right out to Segovia. It's a small town in the mountains about 2 hours north of Madrid. It was beautiful. We had lunch after we arrived and got a hotel room. First stop after lunch was the Alcazar castle. It was an 1800's reconstruciton of the 11thC castle that burned down. The castle was beautiful, but the view was better. Red-stone cliffs, snow-capped hills (very far away) and bright green fields full of sheep.

Next stop, the Basilica, which was full of small chapels containing some of the most gorgeous art I've seen. And more gold than I've seen in a long time.

Final stop, the Roman aquaducts. They are an awe-inspiring feat of engineering. Over 200m remains of the original construction, and it towers over the whole town.

Then we tried to have supper. But the entirety of europe is on a totally different schedule from us. The restaurants don't even OPEN for supper till 8:00. We had to wait an hour before we could find food, and then it was burgers and fries.

Mar 18/07

Hopped an early train back to Madrid. We had great plans to go to Grenada. But you know what they say about the best laid plans... There was no way we were getting to Grenada, so we decided to go straight to Barcelona. Nope, full there too. Ok, fine. We'll stay here, cause there was no other choice. We booked for the next day to Barcelona, and settled in for a relaxing day of nothing. Because it's sunday, nothing is open, so we had a very quiet day.