Segovia, Spain

Segovia was a town on the Middle March, the middle frontier zone of al-Andalus, and control of it changed hands through the early centuries before it was resettled in the eleventh century under Alfonso VI — which is why its Arabic name, Shaqubiya, belongs to a longer history than its surviving buildings suggest. What stands today is mostly later: the aqueduct is Roman, first or second century, and runs some fifteen kilometres from the sierra before crossing the Plaza del Azoguejo on two tiers of arches; the cathedral was begun in 1525, the last great Gothic church built in Spain and known as the lady of cathedrals; and the Alcázar, on the rock's western point, took its present silhouette from rebuilding after a fire in 1862. Outside the walls the Vera Cruz church and the Jewish cemetery sit on the far slope. The whole old town and the aqueduct were inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1985. Segovia is an hour from Madrid, which is what makes it a natural last night before a morning flight.