Legend has it that a poor Segovian girl who carried two large jugs every day to collect water and take it home cried out one day in despair: “I would give anything for the water to reach the gates of the city alone and thus never have to go down this road again.” And her prayers were heard by the devil himself, who promised to build an aqueduct during the night and finish it before he crowed at dawn in exchange for his soul. The cunning girl, heartbroken to see that the devil kept his word, managed to wake up the rooster by lighting a candle in the chicken coop a second before dawn… The devil lost the bet, and Segovia woke up with a magnificent 17 kilometer aqueduct, 166 arches and 120 columns on two levels.
And it must be because of the fire that he unleashed with his anger, that the streets of Segovia smell that they are feeding roast suckling pig… If you arrive at the Plaza del Azoguejo at about one o’clock in the afternoon, you will know what we mean. Hunger invades you at the moment. The restaurant stoves give off a smell towards the Segovian streets that reveal what is being cooked inside.
Roast suckling pig and beans from La Granja
If you visit this Castilian-Leonese city, it is a must to eat a good roast suckling pig, the quintessential dish of this province. Segovians say that their piglets are so tender and exquisite because they are fed only and exclusively with breast milk, raised without any kind of artifice.
We have started directly with the second course, but you must also eat a first course. Don’t worry, there is room in the stomach for everything. That first course cannot be other than beans from La Granja. If you have never seen them before, these beans are going to surprise you, they are called beans for a reason. But despite its large size, this legume is tender and tasty, it melts on the palate…
The origin of this legume is not Spanish, but South American, but the people of Segovia have managed to make it their own. He arrived in Segovia by entering the palaces, but not to satisfy the appetite of nobles and princesses, but rather that of poultry. There was a specific palace, in which a specific king killed his appetite with this delicious dish. That king was none other than Felipe V, and the palace, one of the constructions that the monarch began to carry out from 1721 to spend the hot summer days in peace: the palace of La Granja. They say that it was Felipe’s wife, Queen Isabel de Farnesio, who brought these legumes from Uruguay to feed her pheasants. How the queen discovered the delicacy of these beans… is a mystery.
Segovian punch after visiting the aqueduct
All this feast deserves a good dessert, a dessert with a registered trademark: The Segovian punch. The typical dessert of Segovia does not have as remote an origin as that of the suckling pig or the beans from La Granja. It is the work of the confectioner Frutos García Martín, who in 1926 managed to gracefully mix yolks and almonds to make a cake with a unique flavor to sell in the Plaza Mayor in Segovia. It was King Alfonso XIII who encouraged the pastry chef to make it known at the Universal Exhibition in Barcelona, and the success was such that he obtained the gold medal. And to this day you can continue to enjoy that flavor and buy it at the ‘El Alcázar’ confectionery, where they continue to make the cake with great care in an artisanal way.
And to work up an appetite before eating all these succulent dishes, you will have to take a good walk through the streets of Segovia, to get to know the city. The first obligatory stop, of course, is the aqueduct. The devil must have built it at the end of the 1st century, beginning of the 2nd century. You will be able to see it in its maximum splendor from the Plaza del Azoguejo: about 800 meters of the most impressive that at its highest reaches 28 meters. A complete work of Roman engineering that leaves everyone who passes by speechless. And it leaves you speechless not only because of its magnitude, but also because of its almost pristine state of conservation. A state that may be due to the fact that until recently it continued to bring the waters of the Fuenfría spring to the Segovians practically to the door of their houses.
But there are two more must-see points in Segovia. These are, on the one hand, the Segovia Cathedral, in a Gothic-Renaissance style, built in the 16th century, called the ‘Lady of the Cathedrals’ because of its beauty and size, it is located in the city’s Plaza Mayor. And on the other, the Alcazar of Segovia, which is accessed from the Cathedral. King Alfonso X el Sabio made this Alcázar one of his favorite residences.
And we recommend doing all this walk when there is more atmosphere in the city, when the Segovians dedicate the day to their patrons: on September 25 to the patron saint, the Virgen de la Fuencisla, or on October 25 to the patron Saint San Frutos.