Toledo, Toledo..

30-Jan-2009; 14:11 MADRID

Yesterday we went to Toledo (in case the title didn’t give it away..) and it was absolutely incredible. I had been there 4 years ago to visit my sister and I remember being absolutely wowed by the cathedral, and I was wowed by it once again yesterday. The entire city is just so small and quaint, but there’s so much history behind it as well.

It was here that the Jews, Muslims and Christians all lived in harmony at one point, until 1492 when Isabel told them all to either convert or leave.

The entire cathedral in and of itself is enough for a history lesson that lasts all day. The architecture shows the grandness of the Christians, who were trying to increase their power, but you also see the Muslims’ influence in their horseshoe arcs and geometric ceiling designs. Everyone left their mark and brought a little something to the table. It was the Christians’ main cathedral and all other cathedrals in Spain followed its orders. I forgot that you couldn’t take any pictures in the cathedral and proceeded to be extremely disappointed that I couldn’t share its beauty with all of you across the pond. Google it. Really. Both times that I walked in there, I literally stood with my eyes wide open in awe. It’s quite possibly my single favorite cathedral I have ever seen. I could go on and on about it.. so I’ll stop myself now.

After visiting the cathedral, we went to a plaza to eat and were given 3 hours to explore and wander. And boy, did we wander. We went to the Museo Provincial where we saw a bunch of ancient things, but the best part was the plaza that was right next to the exhibition. We kind of fell in love with it and took a ridiculous amount of pictures with it.

Then we walked some more and stumbled upon a terrible street musician who was singing about Tijuana, Sexo y Marijuana but she was just yelling. Andrew took somewhat of a liking to her so we took a picture with her because well .. she was kind of amusing in all her awful singing.

After that, naturally, we had to take the traditional Look-How-Small-The-Streets-Are-Here pictures, so we found a teeny tiny street, which, let me tell you, really did not take that long. And the picture taking commenced once more.

Then we met up with the rest of the group to go into La Iglesia de San Juan to see one of El Greco’s paintings of the burial of Santo Orgaz. Also amazing. After that we went to the two synagogues – Museo del Transito and Santa María la Blanca – weird names, I know. Santa María la Blanca was by far my favorite. The entire thing is full of Islamic architecture and it’s absolutely gorgeous.

Pues ya.

It was a long day, but it was great. It started out foggy but then got sunny and wonderful. I kind of wish we could have stayed to have dinner there, but we ended up going to a really cheap place in Chueca where Menú del Día gave us a bunch of food for 9€.

That’s all for now.

-ta luego,
Marianna