Day Trip to Avila and Segovia with the ESN (Saturday 22nd November)

Hola Teresa y la clase 9C de Onslow St Audreys,
Yesterday I went on a day trip to Ávila and Segovia with the ESN. I was a bit nervous beforehand thinking that it was going to rain but luckily it did not rain. Firstly I visited Ávila, the great walled city in Spain which is so famous it has been claimed as World Heritage Site. We visited the famous 'Las Murallas' de Ávila which were spectacular where we had another Spanish guide. This time unlike for the 'El Escorial' trip I could understand almost everything the tour guide talked about. 'Las Murallas' are very famous for having 9 little towers and about 6 bridges. The reason why it was so preserved according to the tour guide is that in Renaissance times they did not have a lot of money so they used 'Las Murallas' in order to earn money from visitors to the city. I found out that the Catedral de Avila is very famous for having both Roman and Gothic influences and is seen as the first church built in this pre-Gothic style in the whole of Spain. After having seen 'Las Murallas' de Avila me and my friend had our sandwiches that we had brought with us. Unfortunately me and my friends did not have time to go back and visit the inside of the Catedral de Avila to see this for ourselves as we had to return back to the coach to get to our next destination of Segovia. However we did see some very beautiful Christmas lights up in preparation for December which I have attached a picture of below. We also saw Avila itself, the exterior of the beautiful churches and the Plaza de Santa Teresa (de Avila).

Me at 'Las Murallas' de Avila

Catedral de Avila

Catedral de Avila

Fountain at 'Las Murallas' de Avila.

Plaza de Santa Teresa (with La Iglesia de San Pablo in the distance), Avila

Las Murallas, Avila

Las Murallas, Avila

Avila

Las Murallas, Avila

Las Murallas, Avila

Las Murallas, Avila

Avila

Plaza Mayor, Avila

Side of Catedral, Avila

Christmas lights in Avila

Basilica de San Vicente, Avila

Statue in Plaza de Santa Teresa, Avila

Basilica de San Vicente, Avila

Basilica de San Vicente

 After Avila we then set off towards Segovia which was only 15 minutes away by coach from Avila. We arrived in Segovia at 2:30pm. In Segovia we had free time for an hour and a half to do whatever we wanted. Me and my friends had already eaten our lunch so instead of looking for a restaurants like many other people did we went to the tourist office, got ourselves a map and the tour guide recommended us places to visit. We decided to visit el Catedral de Segovia as we had plenty of time but on our way we found a 'pasteleria' and bought chocolate muffins (which were a little too chocolatey because they were double chocolate muffins and had chocolate in the middle). I have attached some pictures of the Catedral de Segovia below:

On our way through Segovia we also saw the Aqueducto de Segovia and the Plaza Mayor de Segovia with its christmas decorations which you can see below:

Aqueducto de Segovia

Aqueducto de Segovia

Plaza Mayor, Segovia

Plaza Mayor, Segovia

At 4:00 we had to meet up to walk together to the Alcazar de Segovia (which is a great royal castle) which in its style is seen to be similar to 'El Escorial' in Madrid (which I saw 2 weeks ago). We had a guided tour around the Alcazar de Segovia which I understood almost all of what the guide said. I really enjoyed the visit to the Alcazar in Segovia-it is one of my favourite attractions in Spain so far! I have attached some pictures of the Alcazar so you can see how beautiful it is:

View from Alcazar de Segovia

Jardines de Alcazar de Segovia

Alcazar, Segovia

View of Catedral de Segovia from Alcazar de Segovia

Me at el Alcazar de Segovia

After we had visited the Alcazar which was spectacularly beautiful we had an hour of free time and during the free time we had a walk around Segovia and these are some of the things we saw:

Statue outside Alcazar de Segovia

Segovia at night

Overall I had a really great day in both Avila and Segovia and would definitely recommend other people to visit these two extraordinary places.

La semana próxima visitaré en Barcelona de viernes a domingo para visitar mi amiga alemana, que se llama Jil (que conocí en Barcelona este verano a la Universitat de Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona), y al mismo tiempo visitaré mi hermana y mi madre en Barcelona. Por eso no creo que podrá para escribir  la semana próxima, y la semana siguiente antes mi visita a Barcelona visitaré Lisboa en Portugal para cuatro días con el ESN (porque no tengo clase en viernes el 5 de diciembre o en lunes el 8 de diciembre porque estos días son vacaciones públicos para toda la universidad).

Adiós para ahora y hasta en aproximadamente dos o tres semanas,

Becky