{"id":2016,"date":"2019-06-14T09:27:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T09:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2016"},"modified":"2019-06-15T21:16:19","modified_gmt":"2019-06-15T21:16:19","slug":"07-liverpool-wheres-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2016","title":{"rendered":"07. LIVERPOOL. WHERE’S THAT?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We heard that there was going to be a football match in Madrid at the weekend.\u00a0 Our site is predicted to be super-full as opposed to just standard-weekend-over-occupied.\u00a0 So we decided to re-locate to Riaza, about 50 miles further away from the capital.\u00a0 Unfortunately we should have moved 150 miles.\u00a0 \u00a0The place was littered with Liverpool fans.\u00a0 Let’s just say that a relatively small number of people created a lot of noise which continued until nearly 4 am.\u00a0 The site seemed unable – or probably more likely, unwilling – to control them.\u00a0 Apparently, the Civil Guard came to the gates four times but didn’t come in!\u00a0 The site owners found it easier to give anyone who complained a free night!\u00a0 Sad.\u00a0 And these were grown men not kids.\u00a0 Made us ashamed to be English.\u00a0 Luckily Liverpool won.\u00a0 \u00a0I hate to think how they would have behaved if they had lost!\u00a0 (We have to admit that there were a small number of respectable fans on site – well, definitely one!)<\/span><\/p>\n

A little bit of “tree maintenance” allowed us on to a lovely shaded pitch, sadly with a view of Liverpool!<\/p>\n

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We found a bar full of locals in Riaza’s main square.\u00a0 The plaza was set up as the finishing point for the local hill racing event, the Riaza Trail Challenge.\u00a0 This event covers 65 km of the local mountainous terrain and includes a total of 5000m of ascent.<\/p>\n

It had started at 9 am and, when we arrived at the finish (after a 200 m stroll), they had been racing for about 10 hours! Why would they?\u00a0 In temperatures close to 30 degrees!\u00a0 The thing is, most of them crossed the line hopping, skipping and jumping (probably with joy at finishing!) having barely broken a sweat!<\/p>\n

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However, it is true that there looked to be some sore legs around.\u00a0 After a beer or two, we found some lovely, quiet country lanes around the village which didn’t involve climbing or descending more than 10 m or so.\u00a0 We did our own three mile trail trial.\u00a0 And we came joint first.<\/p>\n

Near Riaza is a ski area – and there was still a little snow in the sheltered hollows high up on the mountain.\u00a0 Further to the East there is a collection of tiny villages known as the Red Villages.\u00a0 The countryside around here is very barren – and the soil is very red.\u00a0 The rocks are very red.\u00a0 The sheep are too.\u00a0 The houses are built out of local stone and the mortar uses local sand – so they too are, well, very red!\u00a0 Which is why they are know collectively as the Red Villages!\u00a0 Obviously!<\/p>\n

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Our next stop was Segovia.\u00a0 The place we didn’t quite make the day we ended up in the Royal Palace at La Granja.\u00a0 \u00a0Approaching from the South-east, the campsite, Camping Acueducto, was easily reached from the southern ring road.\u00a0 Except that road was being upgraded to Autopista standard and as a result half the junctions (including the one we wanted) had been summarily closed.\u00a0 So we still had to find the site by driving through the city just from the North-west side instead.<\/p>\n

The campsite had the most ridiculous layout with literally hundreds of large concrete bollards.\u00a0 One at each corner of every pitch.\u00a0 \u00a0And the pitches were tiny.\u00a0 It must be an absolute nightmare in high season.<\/p>\n

Anyway we manoeuvred in and discovered that there was no level ground in either direction!\u00a0 Then some over-friendly Dutch couple pitched immediately behind us – even though the site was only about 15-20% full.\u00a0 We didn’t talk to them!\u00a0 Apart from to say that we hoped they didn’t snore!<\/p>\n

Segovia is a magnificent city.\u00a0 It’s main claims to fame are the Roman aqueduct (after which our campsite is named) and the cathedral.\u00a0 The aqueduct, or more properly, the aqueduct bridge is about 830 metres long with a sharp bend part way along.\u00a0 It reaches 28.5 metres tall at it’s highest point with 6 metres deep foundations.\u00a0 It has a one degree slope and carried water from the River Frio some 17 kms away.\u00a0 In total there are 167 arches and it was built with no mortar or any other form of “glue”. It’s just a magnificent, self-supporting jigsaw puzzle!<\/p>\n

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Once inside the city walls, water was distributed by gravity via an underground system of tunnels and channels.\u00a0\u00a0These have been mapped in recent times and their routes are marked by little brass images of the aqueduct set into the surface paving.<\/p>\n

The rather more recent cathedral was built in the mid to late 1500s in a Gothic style.<\/p>\n

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The vaults are 33 meters high by 50 meters wide and 105 long.<\/p>\n

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It was truly a massive space with stained glass windows and eight chapels around the North and South naves.\u00a0 \u00a0These lit up automatically as we walked into them.\u00a0 There were some amazing paintings and carvings…<\/p>\n

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The bell tower, which we elected not to climb, reaches almost 90 metres. The current stone spire crowning the tower, dating from 1614, was erected after a major fire caused by a thunderstorm. The original spire, entirely Gothic, was built of American mahogany, had a pyramidal structure, and was alledgedly the tallest tower in Spain at the time.<\/p>\n

The original cathedral had been located beside the Alc\u00e1zar – the fortified palace at the very North-west end of the city walls.\u00a0 It was destroyed during a siege by the Comuneros who wanted to control the site from which to launch an attack on the Alc\u00e1zar.\u00a0 The “new” cathedral was relocated to the Plaza Mayor to prevent a recurrence of that siege.<\/p>\n

An external view of the Alc\u00e1zar (not my photo) …<\/p>\n

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My photo shows the lookout tower on the extreme right above.<\/p>\n

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The battlements of the palace have some magnificent views of the surrounding countryside.<\/p>\n

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And the rooms had large collections of armour and weaponry…<\/p>\n

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… and fancy ceilings…<\/p>\n

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So Segovia was quite a tourist centre.\u00a0 There were a lot of tourists.\u00a0 Groups of Chinese and Japanese all following upside down umbrellas or sticks with pink teddy bears attached.<\/p>\n

Next stop is going to be Plasecia to Camping Montfrag\u00fce which we visited last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We heard that there was going to be a football match in Madrid at the weekend.\u00a0 Our site is predicted to be super-full as opposed to just standard-weekend-over-occupied.\u00a0 So we decided to re-locate to Riaza, about 50 miles further away… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-may-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2016"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2043,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions\/2043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}