Under the Spanish Sun: Segovia, Toledo, Vincenzo & Cigüeñas

Segovia

The locals kept telling me the warm and sunny days we were having in Spain were quite exceptional (in your face, Prague April weather!). Anyway, it was the best weather for traveling around Madrid, which was at times - positively - even vulgar in its cosmopolitanism, colors and smells. The towns around fulfill all the ideas about what might be "typically" Spanish.

The first on our list was Segovia. And Segovia had it all:

A guy called Vincenzo, who has been working in his own little restaurant for his whole life. (At Vincenzo's, I had the best Spanish tortilla in Spain - the best Spanish tortilla ever I had in Prague though.) Red-brown magnificent views - mountains included. Waiters who turned around and sprinted away when they heard us speaking English.

Segovia is picturesque, with narrow streets and high potential of claustrophobia should you go there in the peak of the tourist-season. Very cleverly, we went there during the workweek and not really in the tourist-season yet, avoiding being pushed and squeezed into masses of Japanese tourists.

Mountain View.

The Roman Aqueduct.

The epic Cathedral.

The Cathedral from a different angle.

Alcázar. Everytime I saw that word mentioned somewhere, that horrible song Crying at the Discoteque started playing in my head. Is there a diagnose for this?

La Cigüeña.

50 Shades of Brown.

This is the moment I remembered what weather I had left behind in Prague.

Details.

Toledo
We went to Toledo one day before leaving Spain. I was still without the, THE Spanish skirt I had envisioned buying in some small local store owned by a wrinkled old lady. And I was still stunned by the summer-y weather in April, hiding the symptoms of my sun allergy as much as I could.

(Another life-threatening and dangerous event happened in Toledo. While walking through the romantic narrow streets, a tile fell on the ground, right next to me. First I thought I pissed off some local by gazing at balconies and windows and looking like a person who'd like to move in into their homes right now... But in the end, it was Puss Without Boots on his new assassination-mission. Cats, right?)

The first look at the... yes... Alcázar. (Must... resist... that... song...) 

The Cathedral.

A little mosaic.

"The tile fell by itself, I swear!"

One classic view - subtle shades of brown and green. 

Cervantes under the orange tree.

My Monday-morning-face, perfectly captured. 

Beauty lies in details. 

Feelin' safe in the narrow streets.

Even though the population of Toledo is only 28 thousand people more than Segovia's, it felt more spacious to me. (Yes, I liked Segovia more.)

If you would like to witness what the result of Christian, Jewish and Muslim cultural influence looks like, Toledo is the ideal place to go to. It's truly an authentic mix of various elements and you can find even hidden details in different corners of the town.

And yes, that's where my Don Quijote T-shirt is from.