Our daytrip to Segovia was punctuated by a bit of chaos, but, first, the beauty of Segovia.
Segovia is located the Castilla y Leon region of Spain with views of the Guadarrama Mountains in the distance. This natural beauty combined with a Roman Aqueduct, a Gothic Cathedral and the Alcázar de Segovia make this town one of my favorites in Spain.
We started our day in Segovia at the Alcázar with a tour of the palace and a climb to the top of the Tower of Juan II. It was a beautiful day and the views from the top of the tower were worth the climb.
After our visit to the Alcázar, we had a very interesting meal in a restaurant called Casa Comala that features a fusion of Castillian and Mexican foods. The guacamole was to be expected, but the lamb tacos served with tzatziki and a lamb au jus certainly had a Castillian flare. And the lamb tacos were fantastic!
After lunch we wandered the streets of this ancient city to take in a few more sights before catching our train back to Madrid.
While the train was uneventful, the taxi to the train station devolved into chaos.
We went to the taxi stand where we were going to need three taxis to transport nine people from the city to the train station. As the time passed and no taxis appeared, we started to get very nervous. Then, we were fortunate enough to have a van pull up to the taxi stand. After a bit of disagreement about which party should get this taxi, we put eight members of our group in the taxi bound for the train station. That was going guarantee that everyone but me would make the train bound for Madrid.
A few moments later, another taxi pulled up and the chaos began!
A Spanish woman tried to take my taxi (for the record she also tried to take our previous taxi), but I objected. She exploded, but I understood very little other than her anger. At this point, a Spaniard named Carlos intervened on my behalf. Now we had Carlos, the woman and the taxi driver in a very loud conversation that resulted in the taxi driver telling the woman to get out of the taxi. At this point, Carlos, a young radiologist from Arkansas and I climbed into the taxi in a sprint to the train station. We made it!
While I will never see him again, I am eternally grateful to Carlos for his help today.
