After a cold and rainy day in Segovia, we were headed to Pedrazza, a smaller town in the same province, but not quite as popular. A lot of people have heard of Segovia, and the Alcázar of Segovia, but not too many people have heard of Pedrazza. Segovia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, while Pedrazza is not. Its not too big, and not very populated, which makes it a perfect little town to visit for a non-touristy feel. I really wish we had stayed over, but this was a pit-stop in our road trip, and we could only spend a few hours. But I think we will go back for sure.
An approach to Pedrazza via Bandas Sonaras
Like a lot of the cities in the world heritage site list, Pedrazza is also a Medieval Village. The village really was almost abandoned in the 70s and 80s, because there are no jobs nearby (other than tourism related) and so a lot of the younger people left to go to bigger metropolitan areas. Recently the economy took a upturn, as a lot of the urbanites have come back to purchase homes and have renovated them to be weekend escapes.
Pedrazza falls in the province of Segovia and autonomous community of Castilla y Leon, but most of the visitors head towards Segovia; so when we went, it was almost empty. Not to mention, it was raining very heavily with a lot of wind and so most people were indoors. Nevertheless we got to walk around and take in some of the medieval architecture. Towns like these have always appealed to, because they are very different than what I am used to - growing up we heard many fairy tale stories about princes and warriors from medieval times, and walking through these town I can imagine what it would be like to live in one of these towns. They've been modernized since then with indoor plumbing and such, but the old school charm is still there.
After walking around a little bit in what turned out to be almost a ghost town, we got a little hungry. There aren't many restaurants around town, and it was off-season, and cold and rainy, and we didn't think any place would be open. But then we wondered into a small side street, and lo behold, we saw one small place with steamed windows, which could only mean they are cooking inside.
Restaurante Reberte sighted!
We found Restaurante Reberte, which looked like it just opened. It was small place, family owned, it looked like - it felt exactly like what you would want to find in a small medieval village. Spanish lunchtime - especially on a weekend - is really late, around 3PM, and it was still about 2PM, so when we walked in, we were still pretty early and they didn't look prepared. We asked nicely if they could feed us still, and Señor Reberte himself said "of course!". So then we sat down for a nice hearty meal of cordero (lamb roast), sopa castellana and flan. Reberte tended to us himself, all the while roasting and fetching.At the end of the meal (even though we couldn't really stand) he even agreed to take a picture with us.
After the meal, we were warmed up a little bit, but really full. We walked around a little bit more to see the rest of the town, which included the town pharmacy, some other small bars, and the town prison (yes, a prison).