Anton van den Wyngaerde was a Flemish artist of the 16th century. I first encountered his work with his Panorama of London made in 1543. He was employed for quite some time in Spain, so there are many of his panoramas of Spanish cities.

This is the 1562 panorama of Segovia. This view is looking north from the old cemetery on the opposite hill, which is why there are graves being dug in the foreground.

This view is from a slightly different spot (I think Wyngaerde was farther west), but pretty close. The tower is the Church of St Michael (Iglesia San Miguel), just east of the Cathedral. The roof has changed but the tower itself is recognizable. The hillside is now wooded, making a panorama difficult at best. 

Residential towers are common among the elite residences of Salamanca and Segovia. I have used this as a model for a variety of places in the story.

This is the Torreon de Lozoya, on the Plaza of San Martin in Segovia. It was built in the 14th-16th century. Several other palaces are also located on the plaza. Here is another with a much smaller tower.

This is the Tower of Hercules, named for the mythical founder of Segovia. It was first built in the 13th century. It was the residence of the Arias de la Hoz family until 1513 when it became a Dominican convent.

Here is a closer view of the upper portion of the Tower of Hercules.

 Chapter 2 begins with Diego working in his garden. Most medieval and many modern cities have gardens around the margins, where the city-dwellers can grow their vegetables because the dense urban fabric makes it impossible to do so by their home.

These are the gardens outside Segovia, covered with frost in the early hours of a January morning. A fragment of wall is visible in the foreground.

The walls of Segovia on the path to the gardens.

 I have long loved the artistry that is such a big part of Spanish architecture. The melding of different traditions brings a real vitality to the spaces within the buildings. Sometimes the exteriors are grand as well, while sometimes it is mainly on the interior.

This is the chapel in the Alcazar of Segovia. Note on the left the lattice-work screen. This was originally a privacy screen, mainly so the queen could observe services without being looked at by others in the chapel. I adapted this idea for one part of the story in Torremonte.

The other side of the screen, with a seven-year old for scale.

Spanish rapier fencing or sword fighting is slightly different from English or Italian swordplay from the same time period. This site by Richard Marsden has a basic introduction if you would like to see how it works. The overall system is called Destreza.

If you're not interested in that level of detail, simply put, the Spanish system is centered around the idea of a circle which surrounds each participant. That circle is defined by where you can move and where you can strike with your sword. If you move, your circle moves with you (this is something which seems to get lost in translation). You plan your action based on the circle. The circle is most important for what is called the curved step. There are also questions of blade control, distance, and timing, which differ in various ways from other countries.

I have also looked at Fiore's Armizare and have a certain measure of practice as well to aid in understanding how rapiers were used in combat.

Here I am at the New Jersey Renaissance Fair (2015) fencing against my wife. It was very silly but fun.

I recently read A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias. I liked it, and would recommend it. The story is fundamentally about a group of humans studying an alien society in the ocean under the ice of a distant planet's moon. I found the story engaging because Jim created a set of characters that you wanted to know more about and see what happened as the story progressed. I particularly liked how he presented the aliens from their own perspective: they were both alien and accessible, which is a hard thing to do.

I have known Jim a long time, and know how much effort he puts into his ideas and thoughts on alien species. I think this novel does a great job creating a truly alien view, while not making it so alien as to be inaccessible. I picked this up while on a trip to Saratoga Springs, and stayed up too late each night as I wanted to know what was coming next in the story.

Another piece of  Jim's work I really liked is his story The Alien Abduction. This link has a blurb about it. It was published in 2000 in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine.

A townhouse with a top-floor gallery. I saw many houses and residential towers with this design, which I found particularly appealing. I adopted this type of house for some of the places in my writing.

Here is one of the residential towers from a fortified house complex built around 1440. It originally had four towers, but the other three were removed in the early modern period. This is the Torre del Aire, also called the Palacio de los Fermocelle, in Salamanca.

An except from Chapter 2:

Climbing further long the crest, Diego went higher up the hill. He paused a moment to look at Torremonte. The city sat perched on a parallel crest, the great tower of the keep at the highest point of the hill, which gave the city its name. Below the tower, the city fanned out like the folds of a lumpy dress, at least from where Diego stood. The “hem” was the walls and towers of the defenses of the city, marked by the gates. There were seven gates in all, and from his vantage Diego could see three of them, no, four. Each was controlled by one of the noble families of the city, collecting tolls from all who entered the city. Diego did not use the gates, but a narrow gap at the base of one of the older towers which was big enough to climb through. He had little enough money, and he certainly would not use any of it to make the nobles even richer.

The scene was inspired by this view of Segovia, from the pine grove on the opposite hill.

Here is a link to a You Tube video. It is Canarios by Gaspar Sanz, played on the baroque guitar by Diogo Rodrigues.

Canarios played by Diogo Rodrigues

Here are a few images from Spain.

Brick and Half-timber construction.

An elaborate wooden door.

Part of the University of Salamanca.

Cathedral of Salamanca

Carvings on the Cathedral of Salamanca.

Dragon carving on the Cathedral

Residential tower, originally 14th-15th century. Torre de los Anaya.

Fortified residence, Casa de las Viejas. This was turned into a House of Charity for widows in the 17th century. Now it is a film library.

Coffered ceiling

Church of the True Cross (Vera Cruz), Segovia

Great Hall, Alcazar, Segovia

Part of the Armory, Alcazar, Segovia

Cathedral and walls of Segovia

Paella

Bread.

I have been working on a story currently titled "Diego." It was inspired during a trip to Spain in January of 2015.