San Cristóbal de Segovia

It's Semana Santa, or Spanish Easter weekend! And in Barcelona, everyone- and I do mean everyone- flees the city for the four-day weekend. Like Thanksgiving in the USA, Semana Santa is the biggest holiday and traffic weekend of the year. They even have names for it: The mass exodus from Barcelona is called "Operación Salida" ("Operation Exit"), and the Easter Monday returning traffic clusterfuck is called "Operación Retorno." In a city of five million people, about half a million cars leave Barcelona for the Semana Santa holiday. That's not even counting the trains and buses that zoom all over the region.

So like any respectable Spanish resident, we took the opportunity presented by the four-day Easter weekend for a quick holiday via my beloved OUIGO train. Last Easter, we OUIGO-ed it to Zaragoza and Logroño to eat pinchos and see some really, really twisted Spanish Catholicism. This year, we OUIGO-ed to Madrid, Segovia, and Toledo.

We arrived in Madrid around 8pm, and we realized that it is COLD here. Like, I-need-my-winter-wool-coat cold. We hurried from the train station to our AirBnB in Plaza del Sol as we got soaked by the wind and rain. WTF? Doesn't Madrid know that Easter is the start of the Spanish spring??

We had planned to meet up with a former colleague for an old-school Madrid tapas crawl, but she had the audacity to get sick on a holiday weekend. So, the two of us spent several hours sampling tapas and wines at newer, more hipster-style tapas bars. (Note to self: I like the old-school bars better, with their ancient waiters and menus that remain unchanged after 100 years.)

The next morning, we caught a bus from the Madrid city center ninety minutes northwest to Segovia. Segovia is famous for its Roman ruins, specifically its spectacular 1st century AD aqueduct that runs right through the center of the town. When we exited the bus station, we turned a corner to the town plaza, and the aqueduct is right there, front and center. It's pretty impressive.

We took a walking tour around the city, and viewed their gorgeous Gothic cathedral before stopping for lunch at a small taberna (a casual bar with good wines and tapas). Segovian food is very meat-centric, and the most famous dish is roasted suckling piglet. This is not a food I would ever be interested in eating, but Segovia does have some other excellent regional specialties, including Ponche Segoviano. This is a custard-filled cake wrapped in marzipan. This I will eat. Multiple times.

After lunch we visited Segovia's 12th century Alcázar, or fortress castle. Now, the Alcázar of Cordobá in Southern Spain gets all the attention as a "must-see" in Spain. I'd actually never heard of Segovia's. But wow, it is stunning. Like, so stunning that Walt Disney used the Alcázar of Segovia as a model for Cinderella's castle in the 1950 animated film "Cinderella." It's gorgeous and unexpected, and made me realize how very underrated Segovia is.

Like all good medieval fortress towns, Segovia is a city on a hilltop. Our walking tour led us down the craggy cliffs to the valley below, and suddenly we found ourselves on the Camino! The Camino de Madrid, to be exact, which runs 322 kilometers from Madrid to meet up with the Camino Francés in northern Spain. I do luvs me a Camino, so this only made me love Segovia more.

After a full, chilly day, we and our soaking wet selves caught a bus back to Madrid. After drying off and warming up, we headed back out for an old-school tapas crawl (where we proceeded to get wet and cold all over again). We managed to hit five different bars, including El Modroño, a 100-year-old bar that sells a local "strawberry tree" liqueur in edible shot glasses. I played a game of ordering a different alcohol at each bar, and aside from the strawberry tree liqueur, we also sampled Madrid vermut, house-made sweet red wine, orujo de crema (a very strong Spanish version of Bailey's), and shitty Madrid beer. The tapas weren't bad either- I discovered that artichokes pair well with strawberry tree liqueur. Who knew?

Tomorrow we visit Toledo. The real one, not the Ohio one.Read more