Toledo: Day Four

On our fourth day in Spain we made our way to the Atocha train station in Madrid and hopped on to another super fast AVE train bound for Toledo! Thankfully, Toldeo is located only about 30 minutes south of Madrid, so it was a quick ride over. Above, is a photo of Toledo's train station built in 1919!

The city of Toledo is quite large, but for the purposes of our trip we stuck to the old city located within the fortified city walls on top of steep hill (or small mountain? I can't decide!) which is surrounded on three sides by a river. Walking around this city, is literally like walking back in time. Most of the city buildings and streets date somewhere between 1000 and 1300 A.D., and the streets still retain their quirky, twists and turns! In order to protect its citizens, the city of Toledo built thick defensive walls around the town, they are still standing today and the only way in or out of the old city is through the Puertas or doors in the wall.

We arrived in Toldeo around 10 in the morning, ready to see the sights...but not before having another yummy morning sandwich!

The city streets in Toledo are narrow, lined with shops and full of cute little old ladies carrying their groceries.

On our way to see the Cathedral, we noticed that the town had hung up canvas down the city streets surrounding the church. This provided us with much needed shade later in the afternoon, and is something for which we were very greatful! You can see in the photo below that the buildings accross from the Cathedral were hung with garlands made out of rosemary, so again the air smelled wonderful. Leanne informed me over the weekend, that I was wrong about the "Saint's Day" in my post about Sevilla, it was instead,  the celebration of Corpus Christi and I assume that it was the same case in Toledo.

The Cathedral itself, is hemmed in on all sides by buildings, there is no plaza where the front doors are, so it took us a bit to find the correct front door! They all looked very similar.

Once inside this gothic cathedral, though, it quickly distinguished itself! Photography was not allowed in the interior and I dutifully kept the lens cap on. After a few minutes I noticed several brazen tourists walking around with their cameras right out there for all to see, snapping away. None of the security gaurds offered a peep of protest, so I smuggled a few photos anyway! Although I tried to be as surreptitious about it as I could, and I felt guilty about taking more than just a handful. Anyway, the feature that really made this cathedral stand out was the "el transparente" - which is just nuts. NUTS!

Apparently the townsfolk decided that they wanted more light for the church, which makes sense, the interior was pretty dim. So some artisans cut a hole in the roof, and then proceeded to create a baroque mess of angels, cherubs, saints, sinners and prophets. The light from the hole shines down on to the back side of the altar, and it is blah blah blah. I can never actually make all of that stuff out. Regardless, it was mighty impressive and totally out of tune with the rest of the church which was fairly subdude in its gothic-ness.

Once we finished with the Cathedral, we began making our way around the maze of streets determined to find an old Jewish synagog....and then we saw these monsters (pictured above)! Now when I was a wee one living in Costa Rica, I was absolutely petrified of these larger than life figures, and I am still totally unnerved by seeing them out on display! 

Toledo is most famous for its knives, swords and other such killing instruments. ha! Toledo steel blades used to be the last word in luxury though and the knife makers today still try to keep their art alive. Pictured below, Leanne smiles as we enter the shop of a skilled artisan. She bought a hand made pocket knife from this fellow.

Toledo is also known for their marzipan and the nuns of the covent of San Clemente, who still make the sweet and sell it to townsfolk. They have a cutie pie little window display at their shop showing all the steps to makin the pretty finished product. If you wish to buy some, a nun comes to the door and then takes your money and hands you some marzipan! I wish I liked this sweet treat because it surely look good, but I cannot stand the stuff.

After trooping around for about half an hour (and buying way too many ceramic plates), we finally made our to the now abandoned Sinagoga de Santa Maria la Blanca. Toledo is widely known as the Spanish melting pot. Jews, Muslims and Christians all called this town home and all lived together in relative tolerance. For like, a few years. Or at least just long enough for their artistic styles to blend together and what you get is a Jewish synagog that looks like it should be a Sultan's palace...

and that's what Santa Maria Blanca (built in 1203 A.D.) looks like. Unfortunately, in the 16th century all of the Jews in the country were ordered to be expelled - there are only 3 synagogs remaining in the entire country from before that time, and Toledo has 2 of  them. Eventually, the synagog was transformed in to a Christian church, and then in recent times, has been converted to a museum. It was lovely with its many arches.

We were feeling peckish by this point and stumbled upon a tree covered plaza with outdoor seating from 4 restaraunts. We enjoyed our crispy breads and yes...this wonderful chocolate filled crepe!!!

Below, Leanne smiles triumphant after finding and buying a HUGE artisan knife. Now, it was handmade, super sharp and very impressive...and also cost us no end of trouble when we tried to go home. But that story is for another day. On this day at least, Caroline and I were happy she found it.

I thought that the Toledo countryside looked much like I would think Italy might. My friend Katie, who recently spent time in Italy confirms that it does!

Goodness,  this day was also quite hot. However, as long as we practiced "shade hopping" we were doing just fine. After reseting up at little park and taking some "we were here photos", we visited the second synagog in Toledo.

The Sinagoga El Transito, which houses the Sephardic Museum. This synagog, built in 1336 A.D. (!) was again, completed by Muslim artisans. All around the building you can see arabic writing citing the psalms.

Again, the Jewish population did not keep their synagog for long before they were expelled from Toledo. The building then became at various times, a hospital, a church and miltary headquarters during the Napoleonic wars. Now it is a museum, documenting the Jewish faith the in Spain.

To tell you the truth, I am a bit disapointed in my photos of Toledo. They really don't do it justice. Every nook, every cranny was just totally charming. Even their snack stands (below) are cute!

Once we made it home to Madrid, we enjoyed another late dinner of utter deliciousnes.

Caroline fell in love with the sangrias in Spain!

Sevilla: Day Three

Goodness, what can I say about Sevilla? This town was probably one of the more spectacular places I have ever been, and it was also one of the hottest! Sevilla is located about 2 hrs and 30 min south of Madrid using a high speed AVE train. Prior to the building of the high speed rail lines it could take as long as 6 hours to get to Sevilla, so I was thankful for the speed.

We got up bright and early, around 6:30 am to make sure we were ready for our 8:30 am train. We bought some bocadillos (french bread sandwiches) and orange juice for the ride, yours truly may have bought another chocolate croissant, but just pretend you didn't hear that.

The ride south offered plenty of pretty vistas, like this cutie Andalusian hill town surrounded by sunflower fields!

Sevilla is a town that doesn't pull any punches. Everything is big, ornate and certain to overwhelm you. When we hopped out of the taxi close to the historic city center, we heard what sounded like hundreds of bells ringing from the Giralda Bell tower, and it just seemed totally unreal.

We learned soon after that today was Saint Christopher's Day (I think?) and that there was to be a procession and special masses to celebrate. As we were making our way to the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See, also known as the Sevilla Cathedral, the air became perfumed with rosemary. All around us hung garlands of rosemary and folks were carrying big armfuls of the stuff. I'm glad rosemary is one of my favorite herbs!

The cathedral is one of the 3rd largest in the world, after Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, and St. Paul's Cathedral in London. And it was no joke, people! In fact it was so big, that I found it impossible to photograph - I could never get the whole building in the frame!

We felt quite lucky to come on such a special day and especially enjoyed looking at the processions going on within the church.

We were also treated to organ some organ music and my goodness, it was so loud your whole body vibrated with the music! 

Now we come to the part where we didn't feel so lucky, since it was a special Saint's Day, much of the church interior was blocked off from the tourists, so we weren't able to see the altar, or Christopher Columbus' tomb, which was something I was really looking forward to seeing! We had to console ourselves, then, with ol' Columbus' son's gravesite, below.

I a happy to report that we were entirely unmolested throughout the duration of our trip to Spain. By that, I mean that there were no pickpocketing incidents (good ol' Rick had me wearing a money belt and sweating bullets when I got on the metro for the first time), our purses were secure and nothing was taken by sticky fingered street urchins. However, that does not include that rare breed of swindler; the Gypsy palm reader! I was approched outside the Cathedral by a nice looking lady holding what I thought was Rosemary sprigs - she gave me some, I  took it, thinking that this was in observance of  the Saint's Day. She then grabbed my hand and proceeded to read my palm. I am thrilled to tell you that I will live a looooong healthy life...marry the love of my life....and be happy forever. Yeah. Right. Anyway, afterward she demanded 5 euro, I took out what pocket change I had, thrust it at her and walked away saying "Nada mas!" Caroline wasn't so lucky. She was also waylaid and after her palm reading and a benediction, the gypsy demanded 20 euro! She haggled at her so much that Caroline just thrust a 20 euro bill at her and ran off. Below is her rueful expression after being swindled. Oh well. You can't win them all.

After the Cathedral, we visited the Alcazar. It was originally a Moorish fortress (ca. 913 A.D.) with tall walls surrounding the entire sturcture, it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As the story goes, Pedro the Cruel (ca. 1350s) saw the gorgeous grounds of the Alhambra in Granada and was determined to build a palace of equal magnificence. So he hired muslim artisans to design and embellish his palace and what we have is some of the finest remaining examples of what is now called the mudejar style in architecture.

Various Kings and Queens have added on to the palace as the years passed. To this day, King Juan Carlos of Spain stays in the palace when he is in residence in Sevilla.

Much of the script on the walls is in arabic, calling King Pedro "Sultan Pedro".

Looking up on to the ceiling, this was our first indication that we were not going to be visiting your typical, stuffy old palace.

I cannot begin to describe how intricate all of the decorative work was like on the walls, the ceilings, the floors - it was just everywhere.

What makes this palace interesting, culturally, is that the mudejar artisans also included images of living things in to the walls of the palace. Below, you can just make out peacocks and twining vines. While it was against their beliefs to create images of living things, the workmen seemed to bend the rules when creating their deocrations for a Christian king.

The palace gardens where a revelation to me! I was not expecting them to be so lovely. First, we would come upon a grove of orange trees, then a fountain, we'd walk up a coule of steps to another garden, this time with vines and a sitting alcove, and so on and so on. All of these "outdoor rooms" spilling in to one another and leading to views prettier than the next.

I was getting pretty warm by this time, and again, I marveled at how cool and dry the interior rooms where in the palace. It was at least 20 degrees cooler than it was outside. Below is the Patio De Las Doncellas (Patio of the Maidens), apparently, rumor had it that the original Sultans who lived in the Alcazar would require 20 maidens as a sacrifice each year from the surrounding provinces. They would be herded in here and then dispersed to various other Sultans. Of course, this is untrue, but this slander was used to whip up anger towards the Moors when they ruled over Spain.

Undernieth the palace, one Queen had a system of rain filled baths built. In the coolness of the basements the water would stay cold even on the hottest day. While we were visiting, the baths had been drained for some restoration work, but they are otherwise always full of water. The holes in the walls you can see in the back are foutains that usually pour water in to the pools.

After visting the Alcazar, we went on a Rick Steves guided walking tour of the old Jewish Quarter. It was just full of old world charm!

After our walking tour, we made our way to one of the few restaraunts open in the late afternoon for some dinner. Our waitress was a dear and wanted to practice her English with us, so we chatted a bit about how much we had enjoyed visting her town. I was considering visiting a few other sites and asked her what she thought about us going to see the river. Her eyes flew open in alarm and she said "But you cannot go out walking in this heat! It's 40 degrees outside!" Now, I do not know how to convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit
off the top of my head so I just nodded like I knew what she was talking about. By the time we finished our wonderful tapas dinner (picture below) we were too full and drowsy to make the hike to a plaza I was thinking of visiting. Which is all well and good, on the way home on the train I discovered that Caroline's phone had a converter program and when I typed in 40 degrees Celsius, I found it that it was 104 degree Fahrenheit! No wonder we were so wiped on the train home!