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Churches and Monasteries
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The magnificent temple is an actual sample of Castilian Romanesque art from the 12th century. Defined by a triple arcade of columns, three apses, and a mudejar tower occupying the space of the dome, covered by a baroque roof and rebuilt in the 14th century. We must pay special attention to the carved capitals, the marble plaque displaying the image of Saint Martin outside of the apse, and the four column-statues of the façade. On the inside, the visitor can find a triptych from the Flemish artist Adrian Isembrandt, several paintings of the primitive Castilian artist known as the Maestro de las 11.000 virgenes, a sculpture of a Lying Christ attributed to Gregorio Fernández and one of San Francisco from Pedro de Mena.
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Following the cobbled paving of the narrow San Nicolas street, we end up in a quiet spot where we find the Church of la Santisima Trinidad, built in mid 12th century over an older temple, belonging to the 11th. Its structure displays one nave and is headed by a simple apse. The tower was built over the transept. The arcade faces south. On the inside, the visitor can find a Gothic chapel belonging to the Del Campo family, and important works of art by Ambrosius Benson or Giacomo di Pontormo. This is one of the best-preserved temples of the city, with a humble and genuine interior housing important works of art.
SAN JUAN DE LOS CABALLEROS CHURCH
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Belonging to the late 11th century, is one of the oldest churches in Segovia and was probably built over a pre-Christian basilica, from which it maintains the religious space distribution. The name of San Juan de los Caballeros (of the Noblemen) comes from the fact of housing the burials of the Nobles Linajes (Noble Lineages) of the city.
In 1905 the artist Daniel Zuloaga bought and restored it, using the church as his home and workshop on ceramic, and lately into the museum of the Zuloaga family, displaying a collection of ceramic pieces and documents. The building and museum belongs in the present time to the country. In the encircling garden and enclosure, commonly known as "Los Zuloagas", cultural activities are housed in summer.
Tel. (+34) 921 463 348
TIMETABLE
October-June: from Tuesday to Saturday: 10.00 am to 2.00 pm and 4.00 to 7.00 pm
Sunday: 10.00 am to 2.00 pm
July-September: from Tuesday to Saturday: 10.00 am to 2.00 pm and 5.00 to 8.00 pm
Sunday: 10.00 am to 2.00 pm
PRICES
General: 1.20 €
Reduced: 0.60 €
Saturday, Sunday and festivities: Free
People older than 65 years, students, groups min. 15 pp and members of ICOM: Free
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This church was the result of late Romanesque architecture, presents a three-nave structure and an apse modified in the baroque period. The arcade and the tower, declared National Monument in 1896, were added in the 13th century. The tower is considered one of the most beautiful among the Romanesque ones. After suffering a fire in 1896, it was dismembered and rebuilt in the early 20th century, replacing its baroque slate roof with a tiled one. All these difficulties did not lessen the elegance of the tower, an unmistakable milestone in the silhouette of the city.
Inside the church, it’s worth highlighting a Gothic Calvary, brought from the church of Santiago, which has not survived to these days.
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One of the most important temples, model to segovian Romanesque churches because it contains all the characteristics of their kind: Islamic influence (decorations and vaults on caliphal style), arcades used as meeting points (instead of the colonnades of squares), and slender belfries drawing a peculiar profile on the city. Built following the example of the Cathedral of Jaca, its tower still preserves the remains of a former mozarabe building.
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Near to the Aqueduct we can find a hidden jewel of the Romanesque architecture. Built in the 13th century, it has one of the few sculpted tympanums of the segovian Romanesque architecture, a slender tower and a collection of magnificent paintings in its apse, dominated by a Pantocrator, and displaying scenes about the Passion of Christ and the life of its patron saints.
Tel. (+34) 921 42 24 13
TIMETABLE
Monday to Saturday: 10.45 am to 1.45 pm and 4.00 to 7.00 pm (data may change)
PRICE
Ticket: Free-will offering
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On the way to Zamarramala we can find the church of Vera Cruz, founded by the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre in 1208, although the legend attributes its establishment to the Order of the Temple.
The building, with a twelve-sided floor-plan distributed around a central room, has three apses. It is inspired in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and its nave is very sober and thrilling, wrapped in a mysterious veil. The two floors are decorated with groin vaults, Muslim style, and still show remains of wall paintings. The church guarded in the past a relic of the True Cross (known as lignum crucis), and belongs presently to the Order of Malta.
Tel. (+34) 921 431 475
TIMETABLE
Spring-Summer:
Tuesday evening to Sunday: 10.30 am to 1.30 pm and 4.00 to 7.00 pm
Fall-Winter:
Tuesday evening to Sunday: 10.30 am to 1.30 pm and 4.00 to 6.00 pm
PRICES
Ticket: 2 €
Groups bigger than 20 pp: 1.25 €
Tuesday evening: Free
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Convent of the Corpus Christi (Former Main Synagogue)
It has been a sacred place for two religions: Christian and Jewish. It was used as synagogue until 1410, when it was seized from the Jewish community.
The praying room, built in the 14th century, has a rectangular floor-plan divided into three naves, with late additions of the presbytery and the choir. The nave division is solved by two rows of five horseshoe arches each. We can marvel at the beauty of its capitals.
It was the principal of the five synagogues the Jewish community had in the city. It contains notable altarpieces moved from the dissolved convent of San Francisco.
It is peculiar to find such a mixture of both religions combining Christian decoration (composed on various altarpieces devoted to San Francisco de Asis) and paintings, and the architecture of the former Main Synagogue of the Jewish Quarter of Segovia.
The building suffered a fire in 1889, and was completely restored in 2004, recovering its original appearance. Nowadays, it houses a convent of the Order of Saint Clara.
Tel. (+34) 921 463 429
TIMETABLE
From Wednesday to Sunday: 11.00 am to 1.00 pm and 5.00 to 7.00 pm
PRICE
Free-will offering|
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Enrique IV, who had in the building a hunting palace, donated it in 1455 to the Franciscan monks. When that order left in 1488, it was occupied by nuns belonging to the Order of Saint Clara. Tracing an angle with the Plateresque façade, decorated with the praying sculptures of the Catholic Kings, we find the doorway of the temple, carved in renaissance Gothic style on three layered arches: segmental, ongee and clover-shaped, under Moorish eaves.
Inside the temple we can find two pieces of art that justify our visit to the monastery: a spectacular coffered ceiling closing the Main Chapel, and a breathtaking altarpiece unique in its genre, a Flemish piece from the 15th century displaying, through diverse scenery, the Passion of Christ.
On the monastic part opened to visitors, we will able to visit the Vestry, the Throne Room and the Chapter House, covered with amazing coffered ceilings; the Refectory, containing a beautiful pulpit decorated in the mudejar style; and the Gothic-mudejar cloister. Three triptychs made on pipe sand from the Utrecht school, and several collections of documents, sculptures, paintings and furniture complete the visit.
Tel. (+34) 921 420 228
TIMETABLE
Tuesday to Saturday: 10.00 am to 2.00 pm and 4.00 to 7.00 pm
Sunday: 10.00 am to 2.00 pm
PRICE
General: 2 €
Groups bigger than 20pp: 1.50 €
Groups need to arrange a date previously
MONASTERY OF SANTA MARIA DEL PARRAL
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This monastery, built by command of Enrique IV in 1447, though the legend attributes its foundation to his Court favourite Juan de Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, is composed by a conjunction of buildings laid out around several cloisters (Gothic, Mudéjar and Plateresque-styled).
Deserted after the Desamortizacion of 1836 and victim to sacking, its rebuilding came after being declared Monumento Nacional in 1914 and being occupied again by monks from the Hieronymus Order in 1927.
Over the façade of the church, unfinished, we may highlight the coat of arms of the Pacheco family, and a graceful tower crowned by a Plateresque crest, made by the segovian artist Juan Campero. The inside shows a single-nave floor-plant, tribune to the feet, lateral chapels and a polygonal apse, following the example of the typical constructions from the Hieronymus, built by Juan Guas.
Among the exceptional works of art inside this temple stand out the doorway to the vestry, the grave of Beatriz Pacheco and the Apostle Group surrounding the high apse windows, made by the sculptor Sebastian de Almonacid. We must also pay attention to the Plateresque set formed by the main altarpiece carved in wood, and the monumental sculptures of Juan Pacheco and his wife, Maria de Portocarrero, carved by the sculptors Juan Rodriguez and Lucas Giraldo.
Tel. (+34) 921 431 298
www3.planalfa.es/msmparral/parral/
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TIMETABLE
Saturday, Sunday and festivities: 10.00 am to 12.30 pm and 4.15 to 6.30 pm
PRICE
Ticket: Free-will offering
MONASTERY OF THE CARMELITAS DESCALZOS
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Located in the vicinity of the Sanctuary of the Virgen of la Fuencisla, and close to the Church of Vera Cruz, the convent is a brilliant example of the 17th century architecture.
A stone stairway, imitating the ascension to the Mount Carmel, drives us into the convent, founded by San Juan de la Cruz in 1586 over a previous Trinitary one, settled in 1206. The mystic writer ruled the monastery from 1587 to 1591 and his sepulchre is found on the inside, maybe too luxurious, in contrast with his humble and modest life. He loved to climb the carved path up the cliff, called Peñas Grajeras, where we can still find a little chapel advocated to Santa Teresa, spiritual shelter of the Saint. The old trunk of a cypress tree, that San Juan himself planted, are still rooted in the ground.
The remains of the Saint lay in a luxurious sepulchre, intended as a reflection not of his life, but of his grandeur as writer and mystic. It was designed by Felix Granada, and set in 1927, as homage to the two hundred years of his canonization.
Outside of this chapel the visitor will find, to the left, the modest church in which apse is displayed a modern and gigantic altarpiece, composed by nine paintings inspired on the poetic Works of San Juan de la Cruz, painted by the Mexican Carmelite Gerardo Lopez Bonilla, on the occasion of the visit of the Pope Juan Pablo II in 1982.
Tel. (+34) 921 431 349 / (+34) 921 431 961
TIMETABLE
April -September: 10.00 am to 1.30 pm and 4.00 to 8.00 pm
October-March: 10.00 am to 1.30 pm and 4.00 to 7.00 pm
Closed on Monday mornings
PRICE
Ticket: Free-will offering
SANCTUARY OF THE VIRGIN OF LA FUENCISLA
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She is the patron virgin of the Comunidad de Ciudad y Tierra de Segovia. Built between the years of 1598 and 1613 by Francisco de Mora, being too small the renaissance enlargement of the primitive medieval chapel. In the apse we can discover an altarpiece of the sculptor De la Torre, as well as a notable baroque grille closing the presbytery and donated by the Gremio de Pañeros (Union of Textile Workers).
Tel. (+34) 921 433 185
TIMETABLE
October – Mach: 8.30 am to 6.30 pm
April - September: 8.30 am to 8.00 pm
PRICE
Free
MONASTERY OF SANTA CRUZ LA REAL
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