Spain Day 6

Today was another of the packaged tours, this time to Toledo which is south of Madrid.  I woke up at the typical time and got ready then headed out to find something like breakfast without having to spend 9Eu on a not so thrilling buffet.  There really aren't a lot of breakfast place choices so I ended up at the McDonald's down the street. I went in trying to order a toasted muffin and black coffee. The toasted English muffin showed right on the menu. I instead got an Egg McMuffin with bacon and a double shot of espresso. Not really being a fan of eggs I managed to eat it anyway. I guess it was similar to what I ordered though. It did have bacon. I would much have preferred a plain old cup of coffee but that was not in the cards either. The espresso was fine but just not what I wanted.

The tour departed on time and we had a bus ride south to Toledo. The landscape to the south was similar to what I saw heading towards Avila and Segovia except it was missing the mountainous rock formations.  Everything was still grey, yellow and brown. There were less trees also. The weather however was proving it would cooperate for the first time since I arrived in Madrid and we had sun the whole day and by the end of the day it was fairly warm too.  The bus ride had a brief stop outside of Toledo at a tourist trap rest area but I didn't really bother with much there as it was a shortish ride of maybe an hour and the place was crowded with every tour bus heading to Toledo when we got there.

From the rest stop we headed into town by way of a scenic road that allowed us to stop and take pictures at an overlook across the valley from the city. I have the feeling it is expensive to own a home around Toledo. Those on the outskirts are quite large. According to the guide, Magdalena, there are about 80000 inhabitants in Toledo. So it is not really a large city by any stretch. The city of Toledo dates back 2500 years in many various forms. The land was owned by the Romans, Visigoths , Arabs and Castillans throughout its history and there are buildings and ruins from pretty much all the various cultures. I will state that the tour was a series of visits mainly to churches. I cannot expect much else from the very Catholic Spanish. It started with entry in to the city up a long escalator installed in 2000 that brought us up to the city wall. The wall was 12th century if I understood the guide correctly. Some of it had been modified by the various inhabitants along the way. From the wall we walked in to the center of town where stood the cathedral. Apparently this one took 500 yeas to build and dates between the Gothic and Rococo periods. The front of the cathedral shows the Rococo influence. There are baroque elements as well. As with the cathedral at Avila it was not the most impressive church I've been to having that same never finished quality to it.

From the cathedral we walked to a small museum of the back of the church of St. Tome depicting a painting by El Greco of The Burial of Count Orgaz that is considered his most important work. Wasn't thrilling but I guess it was a good painting. From there we moved on to a synagogue that was built by the Arabs for the Jews in the 12th century then bloodily captured and made Christian in the 15th century. Now it is just a museum. Apparently though there are Jews in Spain there is not a true Jewish community here since they were driven out in 1492.  The Arabs were also driven out in 1492 incidentally. In Spanish history 1492 is a very significant point. The synagogue was not decorated much and was mainly empty. It style was definitely more Arabic. I thought it was an odd novelty and would have liked it a bit more without the Catholic work put into it. From the synagogue we walked on to a Franciscan monastery, the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, that was built by command of Queen Isabella and dedicated to St John the Evangelist. The church here has the honor of being the church most used for weddings in Toledo. I will give it credit that it is bright and well lit and looks much less gloomy than most of the churches I've seen in Spain so far. From the monastery we walked to a small cultural museum on a nice terrace at the edge of the city. The former owner was an artist named Victorio Macho who donated the land and belongings to the city for display. I was mostly interested in the views of the Arabic bridge off the balcony. I liked looking down at the river from up there. At this point we walked down to the bridge and across it and then took the bus to our restaurant.

The place was named something like El Cigaralle or something like that. It is in reference to the types of homes that exist in the region. The big expensive ones I mentioned before. I assume this place was built into one of them.  In any event I had the typical lunch which started with water and wine and bread and olives. The first plate they gave us was a starter course of various foods. There was a couple of fritters of some sort as well as a couple slices of a tort or somesuch and a lot of mushrooms and a slice of cheese and some form of tomatoey sauce. I ate the stuff, it was all good. From there we moved on to the main course which was roast lamb shank with boiled vegetables and french fries. The lamb was extremely tender and just fell of the bone and melted in the mouth. Needless to say I really liked it. The veggies weren't so exciting and the fries were soggy. The lamb juices couldn't really save them. Fortunately I really wanted the lamb most so that is what I ate. There was a lot of meat on my piece too.  After the main course there was a cake with vanilla ice cream. The cake had many layers with different flavors on it. It was tasty and very moist. The ice cream was not as good quality as the day before unfortunately but I never turn the stuff down.  They also gave a small coffee included with the meal. I was quite full by the time we were done and headed on to the bus to get the people who didn't buy the included lunch in the tour back at the bridge.

After picking up the rest of the tour we headed up into the city to visit a small shop that shows how a specific gold and steel craft is made in Toledo. It is called Damascian if I heard the girl correctly. Basically they take gold thread and wind it into patterns then hammer it into place in the steel and then heat it to blacken the steel. The whole thing was an excuse to get you into a shop and make you spend money but I am not particularly interested in stuff like that, nor do I have the space for it so I had to just wander in circles until we could finally move out of there. Of course many people bought stuff. One Mexican man bought a Toledo steel show sword. Have fun taking that on the plane...

From the shop we headed to the Alcazar of Toledo. Like in Segovia the Alcazar is a palatial fortress. The term Alcazar can only be used on fortresses in cities apparently. In any event this Alcazar was destroyed in 1936 in the Spanish civil war and was rebuilt again in the 40s. When it was rebuilt it was made into the Army Museum. They intended it to stay as museum from that point on. Apparently in more recent years there have been many collection additions and it also home to what used to be the military museum of Madrid. The building is quite large and though destroyed some sections of it are original if restored. Some of it is fully rebuilt. According to Magdalena they tried to copy the original building as best as possible at least on the outside but concessions were made when building it into a museum. I was a bit curious about the story and she explained that the Alcazar of Toledo had always been a symbol of power in the region. In her words it was like to the world in its time as the White House is to the world in our time (I got her to concede that Wall Street is the real power though). So throughout the list of cultures that had inhabited Toledo over time all of them used the location for some form of stronghold or fortress. That Toledo is not really in any strategic location towards conquest must accentuate the importance of Toledo itself. She went on to say that when the civil war happened the rebels took hold of the Alcazar as a symbol of political power. The fact that they did not hold the rest of the city was probably bad for them but they wanted the symbolism more than anything strategic out of it. I didn't get great details on how it was destroyed but she did tell a story of an important man whose son was taken hostage and he basically let the son be killed than give up the Alcazar it was that important a symbol to both sides. In any event she said that the government has been trying to improve the reputation of the building because to many the Alcazar of Toledo is synonymous with the civil war. Obviously there are still people alive who remember it.  As such that is why the so many additions to the exhibits.

I should also point out that there were ruins of all sorts all over the city it is quite beautiful and I am very happy I made this visit and much happier that the weather cooperated. I would probably not have liked it as much in the rain. I also will use this moment to point out something I should have a while ago. The Spanish are further behind in their smoking cessation than even the French and Germans are. The hotel rooms are all smoking and people here smoke like crazy. I have eaten outside a lot and have not been to a true Spanish restaurant for dinner really so I am not sure if they smoke in restaurants. I wouldn't be surprised. The otherwise restaurants were non-smoking indoors so hopefully they at least have that law.

After the Alcazar it was an hour long bus trip back to Madrid where we disembarked at the tour office and I headed up to the room to rest and get this started before heading out to find food again.  We got back at about 5:30pm.

Seeing Madrid with a bit more sun from the bus I still think it has a grimy feel even if it is clean. I mean the sidewalks and buildings look stained and blackened a bit. I am sure that affected my belief that it felt dirty. I don't think it is a dirty city but it just doesn't fully feel clean either. During my relaxation time I watched a bizarre Japanese movie called Machine Girl. It definitely had a nod to the old Peckinpah days but was often quite amusing. After that I headed out to find food in the official Spanish time frame but really fell over on my back trying to locate something that didn't look to cafeteria style for me. I guess they must like that a lot. Tapas would make sense but it really seems a social food and I am solo of course. So I ended up at the Rong Hua Chinese restaurant where I had Chicken with Hot Pepper that had no hot pepper in it but at least wasn't sweet. I coupled that with white rice and a couple beers. It was good anyway. After dinner it was back to the room to crash for the night after maybe a short time kill to digest for a bit.

The pictures for day 6 are found here.