A festival was on while we were in Segovia! Here is a band playing with great costumes!! The town was in party mode with fireworks and music till dawn!!

In the Middle Ages, this fortified palace was one of the favourite residences of the monarchs of Castile, a key fortress for controlling the region. The Alcazar grew through the ages, and it's function changed many times. After it's stint as a palace, it was a prison for 200 years, and then a Royal Artillery School. It is now a museum.

Segovia was a Roman Military base and needed water. Emperor Trajan's engineers built a nine-mile aqueduct to channel water from the Rio Frio to the city, culminating at the Roman castle which is the Alcazar. The famous and exposed section of the 2000 year old aqueduct is 2,500 feet long and 100 feet high, has 118 arches, was made from 20,000 granite blocks without mortar, and can still carry a stream of water.

Storks build huge nests on church bell towers all through this area! We even saw one church rooftop with four nests on it...condo living for storks! There are two chicks in this nest...we scared Mom away when we got close!! They did not flinch when the bells rang on the hour!!

We climbed 100 narrow winding steps in the bell tower of this 15th century Gothic-Renaissance church.