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Legend has it that, way back in days of yore, the Devil fell in love with a beautiful girl from the Spanish town of Segovia. He watched her every morning as she made the long walk down from her home to collect water into the valley and - as is often the way with the Segovianas - it wasn’t long before she had cast her spell upon him.

Sidling up one morning, the Devil made a deal with her. Before the sun rose on the next day he would build her an aqueduct that would be the talk of Spain, so that the water would be brought straight to her hilltop home and she would never have to make the early-morning walk again. And all he asked in return was her soul.

Thinking that the feat would be impossible, the Segoviana agreed. But as she watched the Devil begin work at an astounding pace she began to worry, to repent and finally, in desperation, she prayed for a miracle from the Virgin Mary.

The next morning the sun rose two hours early but the Devil was so engrossed in his work that it was already light when he laid the finishing touches to one of the finest engineering jobs that the world had ever seen… The Segoviana had won the aqueduct and kept her soul.

Almost two thousand years later that aqueduct still loops its way, like a giant caterpillar, in a series of 163 arches across the red tiled rooftops in the valley. From the cistern where they say that the Segoviana once collected her water you can gaze along the side of the 30-metre stilts that support this awe-inspiring structure. It was originally built to carry water from a spring ten miles away, not by a lovesick devil, but by the town’s Roman conquerors as a gesture that would instil in local pilgrims, rebels and bandits a reverence for the un-vanquishable might of Rome. Held together purely by the weight of its own immense blocks, without any form of cement, it still manages to defy the comprehension of a steady stream of British tourists, German backpackers, American students and other such modern day ‘barbarians.’

Segovia has been described as the most sensual of the traditional capitals of Old Castile and it is surely one of the most romantic cities in Spain. The pace of life is slow and soothing and many visitors who take the hour-long train ride for a daytrip away from the frantic bustle of Madrid invariably find themselves wishing that they had arranged to stay a couple of extra days.

Castile is famed - even within Spain - for its cloudless skies and, even when the nearby peaks of the Sierra de Guadarrama are covered in snow, you still stand a good chance of being able to breakfast on café con leche and delicious, fresh-baked brioche on one of the sunny terraces around Plaza Mayor. Food and drink are two of the great pleasures of a stay in Segovia and locals treat their speciality cochinillo (roast suckling-pig) with the deference due to an authentic work of gastronomic art. “Pork has forty flavours,” they say, “all of them good!” - and traditionally the suckling pig must be so tender that the waiter can slice it with the edge of a plate!

The writer Laurie Lee walked into Segovia in the 30s and called it ‘a city in a valley of stones – a compact, half-forgotten heap of architectural splendours built for the glory of some other time.’ Storks, like bony priests, still hunch their shoulders on the bell tower roofs and vultures still wheel effortlessly on the thermals that rise up the walls of the canyons. Approaching from across the dusty plains, Segovia appears to be an immense ship, ploughing its way across Spain’s Central Plateau. The stern is formed by the aqueduct, the old casements sweep up on either sides of the town like a towering hull, and the prow (from either side of which two rivers roll like bow waves) is formed by the jutting glory of the Alcázar Palace. The ninety-metre mast and the bridge of this gargantuan Navío de Piedra (Ship of Stone) are formed, appropriately enough, by the majestic Gothic Cathedral that has steered the ‘vessel’ for nearly five centuries.

The soaring cliffs and city walls that once protected the city from Muslim infidels and barbarian hordes still do an effective job of quarantining the old town from Segovia’s growing business centre as it spreads down the valley towards the capital. This wonderful old hill town has retained an air of tranquillity that is worthy of a place of pilgrimage and since it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985 it is hoped that its safety is finally assured. The alleyways around the Jewish Quarter, sheltering the sturdy palaces of countless Castilian noble families, still feel tantalisingly mysterious and vaguely haunting.

The narrow gorge below the Palace was once the setting for heinous scenes of fear and loathing where felons and criminals were thrown into the chasm - to save the effort of a sword thrust or, later, the price of a bullet. Legend has it that yet another beautiful Segoviana, a Jewess called Maria del Salto, was once sentenced to death here for adultery. As she fell, she called on the Virgin Mary to prove her innocence and the Virgin appeared to lower the Jewess to the ground on downy wings. The chapel that commemorates this miracle still stands but executions continued and locals still say that the dark denizens of Peña Grajera (‘The Cliff of Crows’) are the tormented souls of the criminals.

The Ship of Stone has long been a setting for tales of love, intrigue, treachery and diabolical pacts and it has cast its spell on many a famous visitor over the years. Walt Disney was so struck with the fairytale towers of the Alcázar that he built one just like it in California for his ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ And even the Devil himself was tempted to renounce his hell-raising ways and set up house with a beautiful Segoviana.

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