I Wonder What Isabel Would Say About That?

This post is the second in a three-part series about my recent travels through Spain.

The Roman aqueduct of Segovia.

Of the many places to visit in Spain, the region of old Castile was an obvious choice for me. The kingdom of Castile rose to prominence during the Middle Ages and eventually became the largest and most powerful of the medieval kingdoms in the Iberian peninsula. The unification of Castile with the various other kingdoms essentially created the modern Spanish nation. Aside from my interest in the history, I had a personal interest as well; some of family originally comes from this region. Although they all left decades ago, I was still very interested to reconnect with one of my "motherlands".

Segovia's high speed train station.
The snow on the Guadarrama
mountains fell the day before.

As I was staying in Madrid, the closest old Castilian city of interest was certainly Segovia. With the high-speed train, the trip from Madrid's Chamartín station was only 30 minutes. While the trip was quick and smooth, Segovia's high-speed train station (Segovia-Guiomar) is inconveniently located in the middle of field. Literally. Conveniently, however, there were multiple buses  heading to Segovia's center. The bus ride took about 20 minutes and I had the amusing experience of sitting behind some silly American college students. One dude loudly proclaimed, "the town is like, super small so it won't take us long to see it all" and "we can, like, hike up to castle and if the clouds break, we'll totally get the coolest views ever!" Spain is quite popular with American students studying abroad and I would encounter many of them that day.

The bus dropped me and all the other day trippers from Madrid right in front of Segovia's oldest and most famous attraction: the mighty Roman aqueduct. Dating from the 1st century CE, the aqueduct dominates this part of the city, rising 29 m (94 ft) above ground at its highest point. The water it carried flowed through channels beneath the city that even went to the Alcázar (castle) at the edge of the historic city center. Although it's no longer used, the aqueduct is still easily capable of transporting water. That's right, it's 2,000 years old and it works just as well now as when it was first built. Roman engineering is truly a wonder for the ages. Unsurprisingly, the aqueduct (along with Segovia's other historic monuments) is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A view of the Segovia aqueduct overlooking Plaza de Azoguejo.

Casa de los Picos on
Calle de Juan Bravo.

My first stop was the tourist office, located right next to the aqueduct. The people there were especially friendly and offered a huge amount of services and support. I'll dare to say it might've been the best tourist office I've ever been to. In any case, I just popped in to get a free map of the city. A friendly attendant gladly handed me one and pointed out how to get to the various points of interest. He then asked me where I was from. For some reason, this question of "where are you from?" really made me stop and think. As an American with Indian, Latino, and Spanish roots, the question "where do I come from?" is often an existential one for me. After pausing for a moment, I simply gave the literal answer and said, "Madrid". He then asked if I was with anyone else. "No, just me", I said. He seemed a bit surprised that someone would visit Segovia from Madrid alone but nonetheless wished me great trip.

The Segovia Cathedral from
as seen from a nearby park.

Every tourist guide I consulted about Segovia warned that the famous Alcázar at the edge town gets very crowded, very quickly, especially on the weekends (I was there on a Saturday). As such, I made a beeline for the Alcázar. The old city has lots of interesting buildings and I especially liked the street signs, many of which were actually colorful murals. By the time I reached Calle de Isabel la Católica, however, I was frozen through. Most of Spain was in the middle of a sudden cold snap (it was late April) and many parts, including the Segovia area, had received fresh snowfall the day before. At the time of my arrival in Segovia, it was a not-so-toasty 9 °C (48 °F). I popped into the first café I could find and ordered a large café con leche. It was the perfect way to warm up and fondly reminded me of the coffee that my (Puerto Rican) grandmother makes. Let me take a moment to rave about the coffee in Spain. Simply put, it's wonderful. Although I'm more of a tea drinker, I do enjoy enjoy coffee as well, particularly when it is as good as what you'll find in Spain. This blog has a great discussion of Spanish coffee.

The main entrance of the Alcázar.

After a brisk walk through the city center and past the lovely cathedral of Segovia, I arrived at the entrance to the Alcázar. Although I could only see a portion of it, it struck me as quite intimidating. The name "Castile" (Spanish: Castilla) is derived from the word "castillo" (castle), so one can interpret the name "Castile" to mean "land of the castles". The abundance of castles in this region a harks back to the days of the Reconquista, when Christian rulers sought to consolidate their power over areas formerly under Islamic rule. There were certainly other tourists around when I arrived but the inside of the Alcázar was relatively quiet.  

The thrones of the
Catholic Monarchs.

One of the first areas one encounters in the Alcázar is the throne room, which contains the actual thrones of the Catholic Monarchs Fernando II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile. Their marriage unified the two largest and most important of the old Spanish kingdoms and essentially marks the beginning of modern Spain. The phrase "tanto monta" ("they amount to the same") was supposedly the motto used by the couple and referred to the fact that they ruled as equals. The adjacent room had a large mural showing the coronation of Isabel, which took place in the Alcázar itself in 1474. Isabel is the one of those fascinatingly complex figures in history whose legacy continues to inspire both admiration and disdain (more on this later). No matter how people feel about her, no one can deny that she left her mark on Spanish history as well as world history. Her sponsorship (really a wild venture capitalist type of gamble) of Christopher Columbus' fateful expedition in 1492 would change the course of history.
 

Mural inside the Alcázar showing the coronation
of Isabel I of Castile.

Title card for the Televisión
Española series "Isabel".

As I made my way through the Alcázar, I overheard a few people chatting about the new, award-winning hit television series "Isabel". Produced by Televisión Española, "Isabel" is basically a sexed up historical drama very much in the style and tradition of other sexed up historical dramas like Showtime's "The Tudors" or HBO's "Rome". The series has been a huge hit in Spain and I also became a fan in the months prior to my trip. It was a great and entertaining way to help me brush up on my Spanish! For anyone interested in watching the show (and who knows Spanish!), all the episodes are freely available online at the Televisión Española website. Aside from entertaining a nation, the "Isabel" series also seems to have stirred up renewed interest in the actual life and times of one of Spain's greatest rulers.

The main cast of TVE's "Isabel".

One of the most impressive rooms was the Hall of Kings. This spacious room showcased statues of all the rulers of Castile under a beautifully adorned golden ceiling while the large windows provided a fantastic view of the surrounding area.

A grand hall with statues of all the rulers of Castile.

The Hall of Kings also had a
great view of the countryside!

The tower of Juan II.

My final stop in the Alcázar was the tower of Juan II (la torre de Juan II). As is typical of old European castle and church towers, the ascent to the top was somewhat vertigo-inducing. It was also a rather tight squeeze, but fortunately I didn't encounter anyone else while going up. When I finally reached the top of the tower, I was awestruck. Although it was still chilly and breezy, the overcast, gray sky from earlier in the morning had given way to clear views and skies with fluffy clouds leisurely floating along. The views from the tower of the countryside and especially of the city itself were stunning, to say the least. I'm sure the American students from the earlier bus ride would've remarked on "like, how freakin' awesome" it was. And I would've totally agreed!

The postcard shot of Segovia and its iconic cathedral.

One of the the pictures I took from the tower struck me as quintessentially Castilian; an old cathedral majestically rising up from a fortified town against the backdrop of snow-capped mountains while the Spanish flag (often seen as a particularly Castilian symbol in modern Spain) fluttered in the cool breeze.
 

This is probably the most "Castilian" photo of my entire trip.

La Iglesia de la Vera Cruz.

When planning my trip to Segovia, I discovered some of the best views of the Alcázar could be had from an area downhill, just outside of the city center. The particular viewpoint was from the Vera Cruz church. It's a small church with a relatively unadorned, almost austere appearance both inside and out. It does, however, have an interesting history. It was built in the 1200s by Crusaders, specifically the Knights Hospitaller. This order would eventually become the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOS), an organization that endures to this day. The SMOS, however, has long since traded in its swords and shields and is now a major charitable and humanitarian NGO operating around the world. SMOS is also an active patron of the Vera Cruz church and oversees its conservation. The stroll to the church was a pleasant one and I did indeed get some fantastic views of the Alcázar.

The Alcázar is supposedly one of the
inspirations for the Disney castle.

I leisurely strolled back into town, past the Alcázar and walked through the old Jewish quarter. Back at the city center, I stopped for lunch at a cute little restaurant called "Almuzara", which had a number of vegetarian items on the menu. Vegetarianism in Spain and in Old Castile in particular is not at all common and most people are hardly familiar with even the concept of vegetarianism. In fact, the joke goes that people in the region consider dead pig to be a vegetable. In this regard, Segovia is famous for a dish called "cochinillo asado", which is basically a whole roasted piglet cut into quarters with the edge of plate. For vegetarians such as myself, the thought and especially the sight of this classic Segovian dish was unpleasant, to say the least.

After lunch, I popped in to the lovely Segovia cathedral. Often called "la dama de las catedrales" (the dame of cathedrals), the Segovia cathedral is the last Gothic style church to be built in Spain and dates from the mid-1500s. The various little exhibits and shrines inside the cathedral would automatically light up when approached, a feature I had never seen before. The illumination would've been more dramatic had the cathedral been darker inside but I still appreciated its novelty.
 

A view of the Segovia cathedral from the Plaza Mayor.

The city of Rome presented Segovia with this statue
to celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the aqueduct.

After exploring some more of the city, I eventually found myself back at the aqueduct. I had a bit of time before the bus to the train station would arrive so I just hung around and relaxed, strolling along the aqueduct and people watching. After a while, I started to think more about Isabel. Quite frankly, I wasn't quite sure what to make of her. On one hand, she can easily been seen as a great hero for all of her momentous accomplishments. Through her strength and cunning, she completely reformed, both economically and politically, a decrepit, unstable, and crime-ridden country and turned it into a powerful nation where the rule of law triumphed. Her marriage to Fernando and the joining Castile with Aragon basically created modern Spain and brought stability to a region long plagued by infighting and civil unrest. Her gutsy sponsorship of Columbus led to discovery of the New World and later on she publicly criticized Columbus' harsh treatment of the Native American peoples. She openly called for their fair and humane treatment although her sentiments would sadly not have much influence in the years after her death. Isabel, a powerful and successful female ruler in an age where female rulers were almost unheard of, is even interpreted by some as a feminist role model.

"The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain" by
Emilio Sala y Francés (1892). I saw this
painting up close at the Museo Prado.

On the other hand, Isabel wasn't exactly warm and fuzzy. She became posthumously known as "Isabel the Catholic" on account of her faith, devotion to, and support of the Catholic church.  However, you could easily argue that she was intolerantly and fanatically pious. During her reign, she established the dreaded Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, aka the Spanish Inquisition, an institution that became legendary for its extremely cruel and brutal treatment of "heretics" and other "enemies of the church". The war against the Emirate of Granada, the last Islamic Kingdom in the Iberian peninsula, was as much a religious crusade for Isabel as it was a political one. In 1492, Granada was defeated and the centuries-long Christian reconquest (Reconquista) of the Iberian peninsula was complete. In the very same year, the Alhambra Decree formally expelled the Jews (Sephardi) from Spain. Even those Jews who converted to avoid expulsion were constantly harassed by the Inquisition, which suspected them of being "false converts" or "crypto-Jews". The Sephardic Jews (some estimate about 100,000 in total) were scattered far and wide, with most settling in north Africa or in areas ruled by the Ottoman Empire. All in all, Isabel did a fantastic job of wiping out once and for all "era of the Three Cultures", that is the age in which Christians, Jews, and Muslims co-existed in the Iberian peninsula. In an interesting modern twist to this story, the Spanish government recently announced it would be offering a right of return and Spanish citizenship to the descendents of the expelled Sephardic Jews. As the BBC headline put it "Sephardic Jews invited back to Spain after 500 years". Better late than never I suppose.

So what's the verdict on Isabel? Is she a great hero or an oppressive religious fanatic? Or perhaps both? Questions like these are what make history so intriguing to me. It's easy to categorize someone as either a saintly hero or a despicable tyrant, but what happens when they're a bit of both, like in the case of Isabel? I haven't a clue. The only thing I can say for sure is that Isabel Trastámara, Queen of Castile, Queen Consort of Aragon, and Servant of God as decreed by the Roman Catholic Church, would probably object to the sexy lingerie shop on the street bearing her name in Segovia.