Jensen to Jensen: Cheryl's Visit Day Four: Avila and Segovia

Remember when we went to Toledo with a tour company? Well this same company also had a full-day tour of the towns of Avila and Segovia. So we bought our tickets for Saturday and early that morning we were up and ready to go. We had a much larger group this time—there were a lot of people visiting and touring because of Santa Semana. But soon enough we were on the road to Avila. Here are a few pictures we took on bus as we left Madrid.

Glenn asked to play on the tablet for the drive and we said yes because we knew it was a bit of a drive. We didn’t think about how we were starting to wind through the mountain. I had been sitting next to Cheryl and Paul was sitting with Glenn. Suddenly Paul called my name and I turned to see what was wrong. Poor little Glenn. His tummy had become unsettled and he threw up all over himself! Ah! This had never happened before, let alone on a bus in a foreign country. So…what to do? I went to the front of the bus where our tour guide was and told her what had happened. She got a garbage bag from the bus driver and then a few tissues and things from fellow passengers. I didn’t have any wipes or anything with me because I thought we were passed the stage of needing to carry them with us all the time. I did however bring both of his sweatshirts/jackets. I don’t know why—I think I had done it in case it was really chilly. So we stripped him and I tried cleaning up as much throw up as I could. I was nervous that the smell would start to bother the other passengers, but no one said anything or gagged or whatever, so maybe they didn’t really smell it. I sure hope so. Throw up is not a pleasant smell and I’m just glad that I was able to keep the contents of my stomach still in my stomach while I cleaned it up. :D

Well we did what we could, but it had gotten all over one jacket, and his pants. His shirt was mostly okay and so was his underwear—just a little bit got on both of those, but we were able to wipe them and get as much of the smell off as we could. We had one bathroom stop before we got to Avila. I took Glenn’s clothes in to the bathroom and washed them off. The tour guide had suggested that I just rinse them and dry them so I could put his clothes back on. Well, that would’ve been nice, but the throw up had soaked through them and just a little wipe would not have cleaned them enough for him to wear them again that day. This little stop was right outside the old city walls of Avila, so Paul and Cheryl took the opportunity to take some pictures. Pretty impressive, eh? In our tour book about Spain, it says that these 12^th century medieval walls are some of the best preserved in the world. They have been restored and modified, but they still are impressive! There are 8 gates, 88 watchtowers, and more than 2500 turrets!

When we stopped in Avila, we first walked near a souvenir shop and our guide told us to look there for some pants for Glenn. We had just wrapped him in my long scarf and his other sweatshirt, but we figured that we would just go buy a new pair of pants. So we looked at the shop and they only had shirts and sweatshirts. Okay, moving on.

So we went with the group to see Basílica de San Vicente. This church was started in the 11^th century, supposedly where 3 martyrs-San Vicente and his sisters-were killed by the Romans.

Inside the church was a beautiful monument commemorating their lives. (Once inside I took off my zip-up sweater so Glenn could put his legs through the arms and have it zipped up and be warmer.)

The Basílica was just outside the city walls and we entered the old city at Puerta de San Vicente. Can you tell that Glenn is wearing a sweater on his bottom half?

We walked through the streets up to the Cathedral. We didn’t go inside, but we did see the outside and the adjoining plaza. Our tour guide, before she started telling us about the buildings, told Paul that there was a kid’s clothing store just down the street from where we were now and in the direction we were headed after we saw the things there. So Paul and Glenn went to see if they could buy pants.

As we left the plaza Cheryl and I stopped at the store to see if they were successful. We got there just in time to see the lady at the check-out scan Glenn’s bottom. We had seen her motion for Paul to take the pants off Glenn so she could scan them and take off the tags. And we could only guess how Paul explained to her that he didn’t have another pair of pants to put on. She was good enough to oblige us. :D I’m sure it was the first time that has happened to her! How grateful we were that there was a children’s clothing store in the heart of this little city! Yay for Kiddy’s Class!

We walked down to the Plaza Mayor and saw some of the buildings there.

This Church that we walked past is the church where Saint Teresa was baptized.

Saint Teresa is also why Avila is a famous little town. We walked over to the Convento de Santa Teresa and learned more about her. This building was built over her birthplace—and the room where she was born was a little chapel covered in gold. Saint Teresa is probably the most important woman in history of the Spanish Catholic Church. She became a nun at age 20 and then after having a scary vision of hell, she decided to make some changes. She reforms asked for the church to return to its roots, having more of a simple lifestyle, like Jesus Christ.

Our time in Avila was then done. We walked back out through the same gate that we entered through. I wish we had had the chance to walk up on top of the walls. But we had another city to see!

We then took the bus to Segovia.

Segovia is famous for its Roman Aqueduct! And it was spectacular!

I think we could’ve looked at it all day!

When we got to Segovia it was time for lunch. We didn’t do lunch with the group this time because we thought we’d try one of the ones suggested in our guide book. So off we went, knowing what time we were to meet back up with the group at the cathedral in Plaza Mayor. We thought that was perfect because the restaurants were right in that area. When we got up there and looked for the restaurants we couldn’t find them. One was closed and one looked like it was no longer there—but turned into something else. Time was quickly going and we needed to start eating soon or we wouldn’t be done in time to catch up with our group. We walked around for a bit and then finally found one that didn’t look too busy. Once inside we thought it looked nice and wondered why other people had walked away when looking at the menu. Well, we needed food and it showed a good price. Paul did the best he could to translate, but there were a lot of words he didn’t know. So when the waitress came to take our order we said one or two and then we asked her to choose other plates that were good and authentic that we would like.

We got three courses, basically. The first one came...

…and we liked the pastry/salad thing and Cheryl, Glenn and I were okay with the duck spread, but Paul didn’t like it. And the soup…we thought, “You can’t go wrong with soup.” Well in this case you can. Paul got it first and after a bite or two realized that it was all the parts of the animal that you didn’t want to eat. So that one didn’t really get eaten.

The next course came and we finished these all. We got two different beef plates and one fish. The fish had little bones in it still, but we all ate it—even Glenn—even me!

And we also had dessert included in the price, but it was time for us to meet up with our group. I took a few pictures of the inside of the restaurant because it was so interesting. It was like a modern art museum too. Strange.

So we got our dessert to go and we ran to catch up with our group. We knew they were meeting outside the cathedral. After looking for them for a few minutes and finding others from our group who had done lunch on their own as well, we found out they had already gone inside. So we went in and met up with them there.

It was beautiful inside. I like lighter interiors so much better than dark ones.

I also liked the organ—

Nice touch, eh?

Some other features inside.

On our walk down to the Alcázar—there were a lot of people there that weekend.

I also saw this sign and it made me smile.

And then we came to the alcázar! Isn’t it amazing?!

This castle has so many of the ‘fairytale’ characteristics that it actually inspired Walt Disney’s vision of Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

I was sad to know that it had burned down in the mid 1800’s and that we were only seeing a reconstruction.

There were some pretty impressive things inside though—the Sala de las Piñas…

…the Sala de Reyes.

Glenn was getting kind of tired by this time and so I distracted him by asking him to count how many kings he saw. I just love his little finger pointing!

Also inside were these things...the Queen's timepiece. You only had that much time to speak with her.

I liked this suit of armor--spiky and fierce, yet his mouth hole were little hearts.

And Paul loves beautiful furniture.

We enjoyed the views from the castle…

…and also views of the castle. Beautiful!

I was slightly bummed that we didn’t get great panoramic views of either city like we got of Toledo. The tour book mentioned great places for awesome views, but we didn’t get that with either city. Maybe if we go again we’ll find those views! But even without them, we still enjoyed our tours of these cities.

The bus ride home we had another mishap--I'll spare the details, but just think of little deer poops around. Needless to say, we were ready to go home. We actually did have energy though to go out to eat. Paul wanted to take us to a restaurant that had been recommended to him from a co-worker, but it too was closed. Such was our luck that day. But we did find a Japanese place open. We looked at the menu and ordered several things because they all looked good. We ate a lot and were so full, and content! I wish I had taken a picture of all that we ordered, but I didn't think about it. We did get a picture of Glenn on our walk to the restaurant. We had put him in pajamas because we figured he would fall asleep--and we were right. I think we got to the restaurant around 9pm and left around 11pm.