El Escorial and Segovia—What An Amazing Day!

by | Oct 15, 2024 | Uncategorized

This was another long day—a very long day. Mike had found us an outstanding tour guide who would take us north to see two incredible places: the monastery at El Escorial and the town (with castle and more) of Segovia.

To start the day, I slept in. I know—me? Sleeping in? Well, it was only until 5:45, but that’s late for me. What was GREAT for me was getting a full night’s sleep after waking up the day before at 1:45 a.m. But that’s why your post for yesterday was delayed.

We met for breakfast at the hotel at 8:00, were picked up by our wonderful driver, Guillermo, at 9:00 and were off in Madrid traffic to our destinations today—the monastery at El Escorial and the town of Segovia. Word of warning here: I took a lot of photos yesterday, and I could not decide which ones I liked the most, so you will be seeing a lot of them.

Guillermo got us to the monastery on time, and our guide for the day, Coral, met us. Her name is Coral (like reefs are made from), but it is pronounced like the OK Corral. No matter how her name sounded, she was excellent. And we had her for the entire day (except lunch), making our experience more personal and engaging.

I could spend a lot of time telling you about the monastery, but it would be easier if you were interested in its significance in Spanish history and checked out their website by clicking here. I will give you the rundown through my photos, and hopefully, that will intrigue you enough to get you to research a little more or perhaps be lucky enough to tour it with Coral someday. So, without further ado, here’s El Escorial in my photos with captions. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

I need to mention that the most amazing room (for me) was down a narrow, winding set of stairs to the actual burial chamber of the most important Kings and Queens of Spain. No photography was allowed from the time we started down the stairs until we came back up again, but I did steal this photo online so you could see what you missed.

If you’re interested at all, please make sure to click the link to the monastery I posted above.

After we finished touring the monastery, it was time to travel to Segovia, where we would have lunch next to a Roman aqueduct and see the most fantastic castle. The ride from El Escorial to Segovia took about 45 minutes (the ride from Madrid to El Escorial had taken about an hour with traffic). Coral did not come with us in the van but said she would meet us at the restaurant right after lunch.

When we arrived in Segovia, we were going to lunch at Mesón de Candido, a very old restaurant…probably the most famous in Segovia because it sat right at the bottom of the Roman aqueduct. At this point, it is time for some aqueduct and Segovia square photos because words can’t describe it. Maybe my captions can.

Lunch was wonderful. We ate outside. The only drawback to eating outside in Spain is the smoke. Cigarettes are still prevalent here, especially when around Asian tour groups who seem to have no problem surrounding you with smokers. We were seated under umbrellas in the square, and at one point, when it started drizzling, non-customer tourists surrounded us, many smoking like chimneys. It’s kind of a sad way to ruin a good meal.

After lunch, Coral found us again, and we told her how truly impressive the Segovian aqueduct was to us, and she said, “Just wait.” She wasn’t kidding. Our next stop was a short break to an incredible site below the Alcázar de Segovia castle. This was an authentic medieval castle, but when you see it, you start thinking that maybe someone in Segovia ordered up a Hollywood castle, just like you would see in the movies. Well, it’s not a set. It’s real, and it’s incredible. Not only was the castle impressive, but from there, the views in every direction were astounding. (I know, that’s a lot of superlatives, but look at the photos and tell me I am exaggerating.) Here are the rest of the shots I took in front and inside this amazing edifice.

All I can say to sum up this wonderful day is WOW! From start to finish, we had a fantastic time. A great driver, a very comfortable van (not a “luxury motor coach”), a superb tour guide, a great lunch and so many incredible sights. It was just a totally WOW day.

In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.  — Federico Garcia Lorca

Castles & Coos

by | Jun 11, 2024 | Photography

First, THE castle

On Sunday morning we again woke early at the Balintoy. We enjoyed one of Gillian’s great breakfasts (she makes a GREAT cup of coffee) and headed out to find two things—an extraordinary castle and coos.

A little Scottish history, as I understand it. In Scotland,  you have clans (extended families) and you have castles. Many of the clans had what is known as an “ancestral home.” For instance, the castle I wrote about two days ago in Armadale (where we had to run from the rain) was the ancestral home of the McDonald clan.

If you are not aware, my wonderful bride is of Scottish descent. Her mother was part of the McCray clan. The ancestral home of the McCray/MacRae clan is a castle you have undoubtedly seen numerous times in photos and films. It is, in all likelihood, Scotland’s most famous castle. It has been in multiple movies (a couple of James Bond films and a rom-com with Patrick Dempsey called “Maid of Honor”), and if it is not the most famous, it is undoubtedly the most photographed. Only Stirling Castle and possibly Edinburgh Castle are more famous but not more photogenic.

So, we needed to make a pilgrimage to Kathleen’s ancestral home. We had been to Eilean Donan in 2003 on our second trip to Europe and our first to Scotland. That was in November, and it was cold and rainy. We were looking forward to seeing it in June with better skies and to see if they had changed anything since we had been there before.

It took us about two hours to get there because, of course, there were things along the way I had to stop and take photos of to show you the incredible beauty that is Scotland. For instance, here’s our stops…another mountain, another waterfall and a vista that rocked.

We finally did arrive at Eileen Donan, and WHAT A ZOO! When we were here in 2003, we paid for entry (It was a small donation of a couple of pounds) and toured the two rooms that were available to view inside the castle. Most people stopped on the road across from the castle and took a photo. While we were there in 2003, we talked to one of the docents who toured us through the rooms, and she said they had expansion plans someday. No kidding.

When we pulled into the car park today (see, I have stopped calling it a parking lot already), there were already more than one hundred cars there. When we got to the brand new Visitor’s Center, gift shop, and restaurant building, we paid our £14 per person admission (and that was senior pricing) to tour the castle. You would think McCrays would get in free ?. On the way to said building, we must have passed more than 200 people.

Of course, I took a BUNCH of photos of Scotland’s most photogenic castle. Eileen Donan sits at the intersection of three lochs (Loch Long, Loch Duich and Loch Alsh), so it has played a significant role in protecting much of Scottish real estate. And it is the position of the castle, on a tiny island at the intersection of these lochs, that makes it so photogenic. So, without further ado, I have for you here my ground-level take on Eilean Donan. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

I would love to show you photos of the inside, but there are numerous signs and numerous docents telling you NO! Suffice it to say it combines Scottish history and Pirates of the Caribbean. Many documents, artifacts and exhibits mixed in with kitchen scenes with mannequins dressed in period clothes trying to stop dishes from falling off a shelf. Seriously. Let’s say some of it went a bit too far. And getting through the place took some time as it was PACKED! Nothing like our November 2003 visit when we had been the only ones there. I am glad to see them so prosperous, but I am also sad to see people treating it as the Scottish version of Disneyland.

Once we had toured the interior of the castle, we went to the restaurant and grabbed a latte and some Scottish shortbread. Then it was off to the gift shop to find the first coo we were to see that day. You see, we were on a hunt for two kinds of coo. One would be a tiny piece of pottery and the other a full-size coo. We got both. The first one we found was in the gift shop. Whew!

Kathleen had seen a very cute ceramic coo at the Balintoy. And when we asked Gillian where she had purchased them, she was pretty sure she had done that at a pottery shop in Uig. The same Uig where we had had lunch the day before. She said it was on the backside of the big car park. We had parked on the front side of the big car park and never seen it. That meant if we didn’t find it in downtown Portree or someplace else, we were driving the 50-mile round trip to Uig to get one. Sadly, we didn’t find it in the Eilean Donan gift shop. Thankfully, Kathleen found one she liked even better!!!! Check that off our list. Now we just need to find the real thing—a live coo.

In researching the trip in Scottish FaceBook groups I had learned that there was a little-known place you could drive up to on a tiny one-lane road to take a photo from above the castle. We asked one of the car park attendants and he was nice enough to give us explicit directions (but swore us to secrecy) and off we went. His directions were right on the money and these photos are the result. My best shots of the castle— either this year or in 2003.

When we were up at the top we had one of those fun travel experiences. The night before we had seen a group of six people eating in the Rosedale when we were having dinner. We could tell by their accents they were Americans. And where should we run into them again? At the top of this hill. They admitted they had not found out the location from the secret guy in the car park but that their guide (who we got to meet) had driven them there. We talked and joked and I took their group photo and the guide was a huge help to get us on our way.

On to the real coos!

For those of you who are not sure about what in the heck I have been writing about when I talk about coos…coos are Scottish Highland cows. In the wonderful dialect that people speak in Scotland, they become coos. They are different from regular cows. They have to be the shaggy, hair-in-their-face kind of cow. You have undoubtedly seen them (if you have ever followed a Scottish FB group or anyone Scottish on Instagram—as they celebrate Coosday every Tuesday). We had not seen a single one yet except when driving at breakneck speed to get to Balintoy and make our dinner reservation.

Having seen a YouTube video taken in the small, nearby village of Plockton, that featured numerous coos we decided to head that way. And our SatNav (no longer a GPS to us) took us on quite the ride to get there. It was supposed to take us on an A road (one lane in both directions) but ended up taking us through some scenic countryside on a B road (one lane in ANY direction). I did get some decent photos on the way. Especially this one that Kathleen spotted for me. You can actually see a regular cow in the distance in the first pic. I couldn’t decide which photo I liked better, cropped or uncropped, so you get both.

We finally got there and were rewarded with exactly ZERO coos. The video had shown a whole bunch along the roadways, but they must have been at Coo church (after all, it was Sunday) because they weren’t out anywhere we could see them. So, sadly, we decided to head back to Portree. That route took us over the Skye Bridge, which is an architectural marvel. Had to get pics of that and when I did, I saw this cool lighthouse under it so I got one of those.

After crossing the bridge and driving back onto the Isle we were still looking for coos. Lo and behold— just outside the village of Sconser, we saw them—COOS! I quickly pulled off, grabbed my camera, and started shooting. Hope you love coos because here they come. I call this gallery The Many Faces of the Scottish Coo. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping… and PLEASE… don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Like the puffins on Lunga, I shot about 300 photos of the Coos of Sconser. Luckily for you, the rest are just for me to look at with fondness ?.

After our coo encounter, it was back to Portree. Kathleen for a nap at the Balintoy and me for a walk to the village, where I hit some decent weather and got some great photos of the downtown. Here they are in all their glory.

That does it for our third and final day on the Isle of Skye. We were headed back to Glasgow the next morning (a six-hour drive). More about that tomorrow…or maybe later today.

I hate it when people romanticize Scotland.  —Alexander McQueen