Griffin and I accompanied Curt and his class on a day trip to an interesting little town named Segovia. The city was originally founded by the Celts and was later settled by the Romans, the Visigoths, and the Moors before falling to the Christians in the 11th century. Segovia is the site of the tallest remaining aqueduct in Spain and one of the best preserved aqueducts in the entire world. The aqueduct is actually the only thing that is left of the Roman town “Segobriga”. It is widely believed that Emperor Trajan, a Spanish ruler of the Roman Empire, ordered the construction of the aqueduct towards the end of the 1st century. The aqueduct brought water to the city from a river in the mountains over 14 km away. It was built from over 20,000 stone blocks without any mortar to hold them together. We had a tour guide that explained the process that the Romans used to build the aqueduct. After this explanation, she told us that recent studies of the aqueduct suggest that Emperor Trajan may have only ordered the reconstruction of the aqueduct, suggesting that it is older than originally believed. The tour guide continued to say that the people of Segovia believe that it was, in fact, built by the devil and shared the local folktale that accompanies this belief. She raised quite a few eyebrows with this tale. The aqueduct was damaged over time when the city fell into the hands of the Visigoths and the Moors, but Queen Isabella ordered repairs to the arches during her reign. Queen Isabella and Ferdinand spent quite a bit of time in Segovia and it was here that she was crowned Queen of Castile. Columbus visited Queen Isabella here to request support for his travels and the Royal Mint was established in Segovia. Over the years, mortar has been added to the aqueduct to preserve its form. It actually continued to bring water to the city until 1950! Griffin loved hanging out with the students for the tour and was disappointed when they had a couple of hours on their own to explore.