Besides the actual friendship, one of the very enriching advantages of one of your best friends being a fine art restorer is when he invites you to visit him at work. Jaime invited me to check out a Medieval bridge in Toledo and the Alfonso XII monument in Madrid (read about those visits here and here), amongst others over the years.

Recently Jaime invited me -and his brother with his two daughters- to visit him as he restores a Gothic altarpiece in Segovia.

Santa María del Parral is just outside Segovia’s city walls, across the river from the cathedral and the castle, a 45-minute (if you pay the Euro 10 toll) highway drive from my mom’s country house. It houses the last six monks of the Hieronymite order, which was once a powerful order favored by the royal family, and with monasteries all over Spain and Portugal.

The Monastery and its church did not disappoint. Despite having been abandoned for years after the government shut it down (together will all other convents and monasteries in the ill advised desamortización de Mendizabal), the gorgeous late gothic nave still stands and most of the monastery has been beautifully restored.

Besides the jaw dropping architecture, the monastery is fed by a really profound water source that provides the monks -and the multicolored carps in the pond- with the best fresh water I have ever tasted! It has all the minerals to satiate your thirst, unlike the thinner mountain water.

Since the Hieronymites are a very contemplative order, understandably we could only visit the “outside” cloister which is beautiful -and has a fountain of that delicious water, in fact, the monastery has never been hooked up to Segovia’s public water system.

Yes, the monastery does have rooms for (male) retreats, but you know I am committed to the Benedictine monks at El Paular!

After the visit, we had a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant before heading back over the mountains home.