Leon's Gothic cathedral
Leon's cathedral
Segovia, Spain - Alcazar castle
Alcazar Castle - inspiration for Walt Disney's Snow White castle
Segovia's aqueduct (me and my bag in foreground)Wednesday, April 14th
I started the day off with a 7:47am train out of Salamanca, Spain to Villaba, Spain - arriving at 10:10am. I then had another train to my destination of Segovia, Spain - arriving at 12 noon.
To get going in the morning, travel dilemma. I had to take a taxi to the train station because it was a few miles away. I called down to the desk and had them send for the taxi - I'd be down in 5 minutes. (I'd discussed with them the night before - we were all set on details). I had paid my room through travelocity, as I always like to get the places on-line - this can often be a money savings effort. I go to drop off the key and the guy says: "I need payment from you". I politely said: "I reserved and paid for the room on-line" This guy wasn't having this answer. I tried to explain again - but the guy was now conveniently losing the ability to understand English. Red flag. The taxi was waiting, I had a train to catch, and I had no time to pull up my receipt on the computer. It was clear this guy wanted payment from me. What do you do?
To get going in the morning, travel dilemma. I had to take a taxi to the train station because it was a few miles away. I called down to the desk and had them send for the taxi - I'd be down in 5 minutes. (I'd discussed with them the night before - we were all set on details). I had paid my room through travelocity, as I always like to get the places on-line - this can often be a money savings effort. I go to drop off the key and the guy says: "I need payment from you". I politely said: "I reserved and paid for the room on-line" This guy wasn't having this answer. I tried to explain again - but the guy was now conveniently losing the ability to understand English. Red flag. The taxi was waiting, I had a train to catch, and I had no time to pull up my receipt on the computer. It was clear this guy wanted payment from me. What do you do?
Well, I gave him my credit card and will take the issue up at a later time. I wanted to walk out, but I wasn't sure if this guy was scamming me or if he really just had details confused. If he was scamming me and I walk out - good for me. If he was just not looking in the correct place with an innocent mix-up, I might have the cops after me. I want no part of a Spanish jail. Looking back - I feel that I made the correct move.
I've had 2 instances in my travel career where my friends and I got scammed - and there was little we could do about it. Once, 9 of us where on Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. we were drinking frosties all day and having a great time. They had food and drink vendors on the beach like at a baseball game. We paid for everything as we went through the day. About sunset, we're ready to leave. A guy comes over and says that we owe "couple hundred bucks". We're all like "No, we've paid for everything during the day." This guy insisted and this kept going back and forth a while. All of a sudden, 2 "cops" appeared out of nowhere. The guy is telling "the cops" that we owe him money. What do you do? These guys had weapons and appeared to be cops. Again - we wanted no part of Brazilian jail. We ended up paying the guy. It was outright robbery and the "cops" were in on it. Basically, they took advantage of a bunch of Americans with intimidation from "cops" They used a dollar value that they knew we could probably come up with.
The other example of this, my buddy is going through security at the Kilimanjaro airport. Sign says 1 bag - he had 1 bag and a small second item. If I remember correctly, most of us had a second item. He see's the sign and goes to put his smaller bag inside the big one. A "cop" comes over and says: "That will be $50 for the second bag". My buddy innocently says "I'll just create 1 bag". The "cop" wasn't going for it. He forced my buddy to pay $50 on the spot. Paying the "cop" on the spot? No way this should have happened. Maybe my buddy would be forced to go back to desk and pay - not that way. Again - robbery from a "person in authority".
Anyway, I tell the 2 stories only because I'm not naive when it comes to scams. I know with the language barrier - it's very easily done. I even budgetted for "scam money" on the trip. I just don't like when it happens to me. This thing with the hotel this morning is not over - I have their email and number. I'm actually leaning toward an innocent mistake. It would be hard to scam me in that way unless the hotel was in on it (possible). When I got the receipt, it had the hotel name on it. This makes me feel better. Lesson -- give yourself more time in the morning if problems arise on checkout.
Sorry for the detour, back to Segovia. Segovia, Spain is another awesome little city. It had a couple memorable sites. One, it has an aqueduct running through the city (see photo). This well-preserved aqueduct is one of Europe's finest surviving examples of Roman architecture. It had 166 double-tierred arches constructed without mortor and is more than 2,000 years old. A second interesting thing about the city is a castle called Alcazar. It's believed that Walt Disney used this castle-palace as an inspriation for the castle in Snow White. It was built during the 12th and 13th centuries.
From Segovia, I took a train to Leon, France. Leon is located about 200 miles north of Madrid. It's famed for it's Gothic cathedral. Construction of this cathedral began in 1205. The walls were built more with glass than stone. One hundred twenty-five stained glass windows and 3 giant rose windows fill the interior with shafts of light. Some of the windows soar as high as 110 ft. and are the original 13th century glasswork. All cumulative, they cover more than 18,000 square feet. Leon was a neat city, smaller than the others I visited yesterday. This was a cool stopping point for a couple hour walk-about on the way to Santiago.
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