La Granja de San Ildefonso entdecken

The Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso was built from 1721 for Philip V on a farm he bought from the Hieronymite monks, below the Guadarrama mountains near Segovia. Teodoro Ardemans designed the palace, later given a garden front by Juvarra and Sacchetti. Visitors see the frescoed royal apartments, the collegiate church and French gardens with sculpted fountains.

The Aqueduct of Segovia is a Roman aqueduct built around the end of the first century AD, probably under Emperor Domitian, to bring water from mountain springs 17 kilometres away. Its arcade of 167 arches, of granite blocks laid without mortar, is at its highest at the Plaza del Azoguejo and carried water until 1973.

Segovia Cathedral is a late Gothic cathedral beside the Plaza Mayor, begun in 1525 by Juan Gil de Hontañón after the old cathedral next to the Alcázar was wrecked in the Revolt of the Comuneros, and consecrated in 1768. The visit takes in the chapels, the cloister brought over from the old cathedral and the chapter house.

The Monastery of Santa María del Parral is a Hieronymite monastery in the Eresma valley below Segovia's walls, founded by Henry IV of Castile in the mid-15th century and laid out by Juan Gallego. Monks of the Order of Saint Jerome have lived here again since the 1920s, and guided visits show the late Gothic church with its Renaissance high altarpiece and the Villena tombs.

The Alcázar of Segovia is a royal fortress on a rock spur above the meeting of the Eresma and Clamores rivers, first recorded in 1120. John II of Castile added the great keep and Philip II the slate spires; after an 1862 fire it was restored. Visitors see the royal halls, the chapel, the artillery museum and the Tower of John II.

The Iglesia de la Vera Cruz is a Romanesque church on the slope below Segovia's walls on the way to Zamarramala, dedicated in 1208. Its twelve-sided nave runs round a two-storey central chamber that recalls the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and its bell tower faces the Alcázar across the valley.