Last weekend, and in celebration of David's tenureship, we spent the night in the
Parador at Siguenza. The hotel is a medieval castle from the 12th century and a makes a really atmospheric getaway for a wintry weekend; suits of armour and stone fireplaces aplenty. One of the best places to eat in the town also happens to be the parador where we had roast suckling pig (
cochinillo) and
migas which are, er...breadcrumbs...though so much tastier than they sound - chunky breadcrumbs fried with a fatty paprika rich sausage known as chistorra and served in this case with a variety of acompaniments: fried egg, baby green peppers, bacon, gammon, cheese, preserved red peppers and grapes. The idea is that you roughly chop the runny egg and greasy chistorra into the crumbs then eat with the rest of the garnishes. Sounds yucky but tastes yummy. Prior to this I had only ever stayed at Paradores when travelling with work - basically they are state owned hotels, almost always in historic buildings and usually 4 star. Also it worked out to be great value as we managed to get an escapada joven (youth getaway) which is about 40euros less than the normal pruice - funny how in Spain joven is up to 35 - funny in a good way of course, but surprising compared to the UK where your 'young persons rail card' is no longer valid at the 'ancient' age of 26... and I only have a couple more years of escapadas joven to go so I'd better get my skates on ;-)
Here are some photos of the weekend plus an example of what
migas look like.
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| Siguenza Parador |
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| This second photo is taken in a castle in Jadraque that is closed to the public but seeing as some local youths had already broken down the fencing we sneaked in :-) |
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| Migas with accompaniments - source |
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Views of the deserted castle
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5 comments:
35? Wish I´d known, I have just over a month to enjoy my "youth" discount, must get cracking!
Nadya, I've been a reader of your blog for a while, as a fellow brit living in Madrid (malasaña girl) and am glad to see you posting again! The parador look really lovely. I'm a migas enthusiast; I think it's the closest Spanish thing to an English sunday breakfast. I'll put this on my list for escapada ideas - my bloke and I had a lovely weekend fiarly near there in Illueca at the Castillo Papa Luna. Very pretty, would recommend it.
Take care and kkep posting!
Liz
That is an impressive looking Castle (although I must say I'm more interested in the food) - unfortunately the Young Person discount seems to have missed me by 12 months.
The good thing that as long as the person you go with is up to 35 you both get the discount! Thanks for reading Liz, I just Googled the hotel you went to, looks lovely, we'll definitely try it out :-)
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