Real Sitio de San Ildefonso

The fountains start at 11 sharp. One moment the gardens are silent, the next water arcs 40 metres across the Grand Cascade while a coach party from Toledo scrambles for video mode. This is Real Sitio de San Ildefonso, a town built for royal whims 1,190 metres above Madrid’s heat haze, and the display still runs like clockwork three centuries later.

Felipe V chose the spot in 1721 because the air came pre-chilled from Peñalara’s granite slopes. What he created was neither fortress nor capital but a summer retreat in strict grid form: straight streets named after courtiers, stone houses with aristocratic doorways, and at the upper end a palace that does a decent impression of Versailles. The result feels more like a French town someone has dropped into pine-scented Spain than like the usual Segovian hill village.

Inside the palace, outside the crowds

The Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso is exactly what you expect from an 18th-century royal pile: gilt mirrors, Flemish tapestries and a Sala de Porcelana where every wall is coated in cobalt panels from the local glassworks. Entry is €9 and includes a timed ticket for the next fountain show; arrive 15 minutes early and you can bag the stone bench directly opposite the Baths of Diana. Guides keep numbers low – 25 maximum – so you will not shuffle round in a conga line.

Most British visitors treat the palace as an add-on to Segovia’s aqueduct, 20 minutes down the N-603. That works, provided you do not try to sandwich in El Escorial the same day. Tuesday to Thursday the rooms feel half-empty; weekends bring Madrid coach parties and a queue for the café’s judiones stew by 13:00.

Water, woodland and winter roads

Behind the palace 146 hectares of French-style gardens run uphill to the tree line. The map looks walkable until you discover every vista ends in a flight of steps. Allow two hours if the fountains are working, one if they are not – dry statuary is a poor substitute for hydraulic theatre. The schedule changes monthly: weekends in May, alternate Wednesdays in October, nothing at all in January. Check the Patrimonio Nacional website before you set off; nothing deflates faster than a selfie beside a silent Neptune.

Paths continue past the railings into the Guadarrama National Park. Within ten minutes the hum of the A-6 disappears and you are among Scots pine and resin-scented broom. The Senda de los Reales Sitios, a 10 km bridleway to Valsaín, is flat enough for grandparents yet offers views back to the palace’s dome and, beyond it, the snow patches on Peñalara. Higher routes lead to the summit at 2,428 metres – serious walking country where the weather can flip from T-shirt to sleet in the time it takes to eat a bocadillo.

Winter brings its own arithmetic. Valdesquí ski station is 20 kilometres away, but the M-604 over the pass can close when snowploughs prioritise the Madrid commuter route. Chains are compulsory kit from December to March; without them you may spend the night in the parador’s bar listening to hopeful talk of “mañana”.

A town that refuses to be a museum

Unlike Aranjuez, where the royal apron strings feel permanent, San Ildefonso has a life beyond tourism. Schoolchildren chase footballs in the Plaza de España while their grandfathers argue over cards under heaters that glow red from October to April. Estate agents’ windows advertise three-bed flats for €140,000 – Madrid prices without Madrid salaries – and the Tuesday market still sells socks and cheap melons rather than lavender sachets.

Food follows the same unshowy rule. Judiones de la Granja – butter beans the size of 50p pieces – arrive simmered with pork belly and morcilla in earthenware cazuelas. The flavour is gentle, more nursery than nightclub, and a €12 portion at Casa José on Calle San Juan is big enough to cancel dinner. Local trout, flashed on the grill and finished with almond sauce, tastes of mountain streams rather than fish-farm pellets. Finish with ponche segoviano, a set custard square dusted with cinnamon that survives the journey home if you buy it before 11:00 when the bakery on Calle de la Reina still has the day’s batch.

Beds, buses and the British timetable

The state-run Parador de La Granja occupies the former royal guard barracks opposite the palace gates. Rooms start at €120 including garage parking – useful because the old centre is permit-only. Cheaper options line the main road: Hostal Lérida offers clean doubles for €55 but brings you nose-to-nose with every Madrid lorry that changes gear for the climb.

Public transport works if you plan like a Spaniard. From Madrid’s Príncipe Pío station, bus 682 reaches Segovia in an hour; change to the La Sepulvedana service that continues to San Ildefonso (20 minutes, €2.10). The last bus back leaves at 19:30, so anyone hoping for dinner in town needs an overnight bag. Hiring a car at Barajas is simpler: A-6 to Collado Villalba, then M-607 over the Guadarrama pass – 75 minutes in light traffic, two hours if the Friday exodus is under way.

Worth the detour?

Come for the fountains if they are running; stay for the mountain air even if they are not. San Ildefonso offers a cooler, quieter counterpoint to Segovia’s selfie queues without requiring the hiking commitment of the high Sierra. Bring sensible shoes, check the water schedule, and do not expect cobbled romance – this is a working town with a royal garden attached. In May the lilac blooms along Paseo de los Reales and the cafés put tables under new leaves; in February the same street is a wind tunnel funneling snow off the peaks. Both versions are honest, and that is precisely the point.