A Day Trip to Toledo!

Hola!

 

Wow!  What an incredible day!  We headed out about 7 am this morning, and just stumbled back in about 6:30 pm!  But what wonderful adventures!  Today was the day we set aside for a day trip to Toledo.  It’s literally about 33 minutes from Madrid-Atocha train station (the same train station that was attacked by Al-Quida terrorists in 2004) to Toledo.  As I have a Rick Steves Madrid & Toledo guidebook, I’ve been relying on Rick to come up with good suggestions.  (Actually, I was very unhappy with Rick when he “outed” our favorite hotel in Florence, Italy, but time heals all…)  At any rate, he kept reiterating that trains returning to Madrid in the evenings get fully booked, and it behooves one to plan ahead.  So, that’s what I did.  However, the one thing that he did NOT mention and I will mention now, is that things don’t really begin to open up in Toledo until usually 10 am.  So, we made our train – the 7:50 am and arrived about 8:30 am.  Great, except for the fact that there were NO cabs to be had at the station until about 8:45-50 or so.  I was going to give Uber a try on the off-chance they were in town, but just as I was getting to my Uber app, up pulls several cabs and we were on our way!

 

Lions lining a Cathedral entrance

City Hall

Beautiful narrow streets

Really narrow...

Breakfast!

Heading up the hill into town

Lovely Toledo train station

We asked to be delivered to Plaza Zocodover, the main plaza in town, and it cost all of about €3.90 to get us UPPPPP the hill into the old town.  (There are people who walk it, and apparently there is a series of escalators, but being old and spoiled, we opted for transport other than legs!)  There was a corner restaurant, San Telesforo (claims to have been in business since 1806) that was open, and we had several good (but sticky from a glaze…) croissants with strawberry jam, two glasses of fresh orange juice, R’s café Americano, and my hot chocolate.  To say the chocolate was good is an understatement – it could have been chocolate pudding – at any rate, I ate the entire thing with a spoon, and loved ever slurp! 

 

I would like to say a few things about Toledo before we hit the Cathedral.  First of all, it was an area of great tolerance in the matter of religion.  Initially, it was a Roman transportation hub with a thriving Jewish population.  After Rome fell, the city became a Visigothic capital (554 A.D.) In 711, the Moors (Muslims) made it a regional center.  The city was reconquered by Christians in 1085, but many Moors remained in Toledo, tolerated and respected as scholars and craftsmen. As a result of this mixing of cultures, the city has some amazing architecture; there are definitely surprises everywhere!  

 

By now, it was approaching 9:45 am so we headed up and down and over to the Cathedral (Toledo is built on a mountain top).  We were, of course, the first people in line for tickets at the shop across the street from the main entrance … which also made us the first people in the Cathedral, which was nice.  Now, about the Cathedral.  We have visited many such buildings all over the world – and truly, as we talked about at lunch, Toledo Cathedral is a step above any we can think of.  It’s huge, for one thing, and really old, for another. It was begun in 1226 and the last gothic contribution was in 1493.  Again, just like the Royal Palace in Madrid, each Bishop wanted to out-build his predecessor.  

 

Apparently, it was modeled after the Bourges Cathedral in France, although its plan is larger because they wanted to cover all of the former city Mosque.  We had opted to rent the headphones, which did a really good job on explanations.  It is 390 feet long, 194 feet wide and 146 feet high.  But what makes this cathedral so incredible are it’s wonderful 500 year old stained glass and its art treasures – there are 19 El Greco’s inside as well as masterpieces by de Goya, Titian, Velazquez, Caravaggio and Bellini, and truly, the amazement never stops.  One of my very favorite things is called the Transparente, a unique feature of the Cathedral.  In 1700 a hole was cut into the ceiling to let sunlight brighten the mass.  The opening faces east and catches the rising sun, and this Baroque masterpiece is truly an incredible sight!  

 

Also incredible to see is the Monstrance, which is 10 feet high, weighs 430 pounds and is designed to hold the Communion wafer during the festival of Corpus Christi when it was paraded through the city. (How this thing ever actually MOVED is a mystery to me!) Built in 1517, it is made of 5,000 individual pieces, held together with 12,500 screws. (Now that’s a jigsaw puzzle!) There are diamonds, emeralds, rubies, 400 pounds of gold-plated silver, and the inner part, which is a century older, has 35 pounds of solid gold. Hmmm…any guesses where that might have come from??

 

We actually spent over 2 hours in the Cathedral, and the very best part was that we didn’t run into ANY tour groups at all until the last 10 minutes we were there.  Truly, it does pay to be an early bird!  As R says, this is truly one of the most spectacular buildings we have ever seen. (Following posting will have all Cathedral photos!)

 

We were fair to partly dropping by this point, so decided to head back to the Plaza Zocodover and get a coke at the ubiquitous Golden Arches.  I had had a lovely time looking in shop windows as we walked to the Cathedral – but of course, none of the stores were open then!  Now, things were open, and I was – as Robert puts it – having “trouble” getting over visual overload.  So, we got a coke at the Plaza, and by the time R returned with it, I had decided I needed to go back to one of the stores we passed … and of course, it had to be the very first shop we passed on the way back up the hill … always the way!  So, I left R in the square and went back to take a second look…returning with some beautiful silver earrings and a new silver bracelet!  Ha!! 

 

At this point, after a short rest, we decided to take another Rick Steves suggestion:  The tourist train.  It runs every hour, and was an excellent suggestion!  The small train (on wheels) goes through Toledo and around the Tajo River Gorge.  The views of the city, both going down and coming up, are spectacular.  Robert was snapping so many pictures – I was thinking about the fact that at least we weren’t going to have to pay for developing film like in the good old days! 

 

Tourist Train - great fun and highly recommended!

Dangly earrings!! (What a tart!)

These are some strong walls!

Ancient Roman bridge

Beautiful river!

My very favorite photographer!

At this point, it was a bit after 3 pm so we decided to see if we could find a light lunch somewhere.  As it turns out, we went back to San Telesforo to try their pizza!  We had planned on splitting one pizza between us, but the waitress indicated that it wasn’t very big … so, R ordered a pizza Margharita and I ordered one with York ham and cheese on it.  They were both good, but mine “won.”  The only problem, though, was that now that we’re back in Madrid, we’re still too full to have a big dinner!  Oh well!  Maybe tomorrow!

 

R's pizza with cherry tomatoes

My pizza with "York" ham (?)

By the time we had finished our lunch, we decided that it was time we headed back to the train station.  So, just up the street a short way, we were able to get a taxi to the station.  This time, it was something like €4.20; definitely worth the price, even if we would have been willing to walk downhill all the way.  

 

Train was on time, but only one problem!  Although everyone has coach numbers and seat numbers on their tickets, the train itself didn’t display anything at all – making things a real mess, when all the folks tried to get on the train … don’t know if it’s Toledo’s way of getting even with tourists or what, but as people would find others in “their” seats, it became an international debate on which car was which!  Fortunately, we were able to confirm and get on the right car right off the bat (it depends on where you look for coach numbers…) but it made for a few interesting moments!  Train took off right at 5:25 pm and in 33 minutes, we were back at Atocha station.  From there, it was a very, very easy walk back to the Metro, and as we walked up, our train pulled into the station – going the right way and everything!!  Yeah!  We got off at Gran Via, and truly, in less than 10 minutes we were back in the apartment, exhausted!  R says I will be up all night blogging, but I’m thinking he’s the one who has to go through and pretty-up the photos, so he’ll have the hardest task!  We’ll see!  So, no more for today, and tomorrow will be our last day in Madrid before we set out on Wednesday for Avila!

 

Lots of love!

m

xxx