onso, Spain – June 6, 2010
Real Sitio de San Ildefonso (Royal Site of San Ildefonso) is a quaint little town just southeast of Segovia. We drove there from our home in Pozuelo. We took the back-roads, through the mountains. It is a beautiful drive, one that very much reminds me of Colorado. It takes about an hour to get there.
We choose that town because one of the royal palaces is located there. I am told it was supposedly built in the style of the palace at Versailles.
When we arrived, we parked some distance from the palace, in part, because we were not sure where it was. As we walked toward the palace, we passed a building that had a Schnauzer dog sitting on the terrace. He reminded Lorraine of her Schnauzer. He was just sitting there watching the world.
There was a festival taking place in the town that day too. I am not sure if it was for Corpus Christi like the festival in Toledo yesterday or if it was something different.
Once we got our bearings, we began to walk toward the palace. The first thing one sees is the palace chapel. It was very large. As we got closer, we could see many of the boys and girls coming out of the chapel were dressed in their Sunday best. It appeared that there may have been the sacrament of first-communion that Sunday.
As part of the overall decoration, there was a tapestry hung on the exterior of the chapel. Who knows how old that may have been.
We made our way into the palace. This is one of the palaces in which one can do a self-guided tour. We got a wheelchair for Aunt Arlene so she would be more comfortable, and off we went. For me, it is just amazing to stand at one end of the palace, in one of the rooms, and look some 80 meters (262 feet) or so through room after room. It’s good to be the king!
This particular palace is very well known for its fountains in the gardens. They were not on when we were there; however, I can imagine it would be quite impressive when they are all turned on.
That was nice.