Hi everyone! I just wanted to say a few things before we get started with the story. First, the English closed captions on our first video have been completed! (Yay!) and video #4 (about Plaza De Espana) is also closed captioned. We are working hard to finish so that all of our English speaking peeps can understand the topic of our videos! :) Now on to the story!
Today's topic is Toledo and Segovia, two smaller towns stemming off Madrid. We went to Toledo first, and we were very exited to see it because that is where some of our family's ancestors are from! It was one hour long drive more or less, through a beautiful part of Spain full of open meadows and vegetation. We drove around the outside of the town before actually entering, but once we entered we were amazed.
Toledo
We parked in a small parking area and hopped out from the car. After reading the first Harry Potter book, Naomi and I both were exited to see sticks just the right size to pretend they were our wands! (To anyone who cares, we did the Pottermore test and we are both Ravenclaws). We walked up a short trail to a large entrance to the city. The whole city is wrapped in a stone wall with limited entrances. We walked around the old town and entered a cathedral covered in intricate paintings and for some reason carvings of people on chair armrests that were buck naked pointing their butt at you. (?!?!) We walked around and did a couple things, (including fighting practice with Naomi) and then finally headed home.
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| Naomi and I in a old town street |
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| The weird carving with an accurate butt |
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| The stained glass at the cathedral |
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| The amazing cathedral ceiling |
Segovia
When we arrived in Segovia, the first thing we saw was the giant Alcazar of Segovia, an amazing building, (more on that later) but we were going to see the AquaDuct first. The Segovia AquaDuct is an elevated path where the water flows across the city, that has been here since the Ancient Romans! It is made of stone and its layers of arches form a quite beautiful design.
We then started towards the Alcazar, making short stops along the way, briefly entered a cathedral, and then headed back to a long stairway up a steep hill to get to the entrance to the Alcazar. It immediately stood out to me. It was a completely different vibe from buildings like the Alhambra or the Alcazar de Sevilla. We entered the building, and saw a little courtyard in the center of the building. Then we followed a sign towards a part of the building to explore. There was an armory and royal rooms. Look-out spots and counsel rooms. We all tried to take the best pics we could and a lot turned out really good! (They don't look as good here because they are lower quality but we are planning to show them in a higher resolution format later)
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| Us by the AquaDuct |
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| Me climbing the stairs |
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| The Segovia Alcazar |
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| Us as statues |
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| Me in front of an awesome window |
After that we walked back to our car and headed back to Madrid. On the way home we drove a cool way through a national park and stopped by a river.
That's all for now!
-Aviana <3
Another wonderful blog story! Well done, Aviana! So descriptive and succinct at the same time. A lot of writers will stray from the focal point of the overall story or intention of the piece of writing. But you are really doing good at keep us (the reader's) moving forward through the details and your experiences and impressions of your families traveling. A great job! And, when you stay on track like that it also makes the few times you choose to tell a connected but somewhat sideways story - like the Harry Potter book mention with the Ravenclaws and wand details - those points standout even more and are extra special and fun!
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the commentary you make on the photo's, which is such a perfect way to bring all that visual life to the story. The picture of you, your mom, and your dad all lined up with the statues is fabulous. I assume Naomi took it. And I bet someone had to do some convincing on that one! Your dad looks like he's being totally casual, like he's not really lining-up or anything. He's always been a very modest man.
I also thought I'd tell you that the funny or odd naked carvings you saw in the Cathedral in Toledo were (very possibly) done by an artist named Mena, who was famous for his depictions of nude Christian worship (often extreme prayer) in which his intention was to show extra-intense devotion through extremely accurate and revealing nakedness of the human figure. It seems odd now, but old Christian custom often involved nude Baptism of both children and adults converts. Even early American Quaker's and other Christian church's of the time had customs that embraced nudity as a way of acknowledging that there was nothing necessarily "bad" about a naked human body itself, especially since the human body is a creation of God in their belief system.
Of course, those customs are long gone in modern Christian society and society at large! But the acknowledgement that human nakedness, itself, isn't necessarily something "bad" is still strong among a great many Christians, people of other religions, and non-religious people as well.
And boy, you weren't kidding about that carving! It's so accurate it's TOO accurate! A very, very old example of TMI, hahaha!
Lastly, I have to mention that I super love all the photo's and I am excited to hear about your intention to present a collection in high definition! So many of them are marvelous, and I know that all of you have taken superb shots, which means it is an artistic collaboration of four photographers - which will make for an extra interesting final collection or album.
Here's a shout-out to your Papa: Yo Nick, isn't Toldeo the home of Spain's most famous steel and swords makers? Where Indigo Montoya is from, right? Hahaha! Love to you, Bruv!
Thanks, again!