Holy Toledo

 

Biggest St. Christopher Ever

Dead Cardinal Alert

Church Art Collection

A Room of El Greco's 

Gold from the America's

What a Wealthy Church St. Iglesia is!

Cathy with our guide Carla

Patatas Bravas (didn't make the cut)

Synagogue restored after being made a Church

Typical Hillside Stone Street

Royal Palace restored after Spanish Civil War

Creamiest Cheesecake Ever

Chicken that thought it was steak

Tortilla: Eggs, Potatoes Topped with Truffles!

With the aid of a sleeping pill, I slept most of the night. We had to be at the train station at 9am to meet our guide for our tour of Toledo. Carla was a great guide; she apparently knows everything about Spanish Art. The high-speed train only takes 25 minutes to get to Toledo. the city has a long and complicated history being ruled by the Visigoths (who proclaimed it their capital), Muslims and finally Christians. It has a mixed history of Muslim, Christian and Jewish interactions sometimes good, often terrible as the inquisition was implemented. It is hard to enjoy the beauty without reminding yourself of the terrors. The city has been the home of very powerful Cardinals and Bishops that held great sway over Spanish life. They were extremely powerful as the Church controlled many services such as hospitals.

 

The city sits on top of a mountain and is surrounded by a river and walls. It is quite small. It is a perfectly preserved old Spanish town, every ancient town was a UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site. Everything is made of stone. The streets are narrow and twisty. We walked up and down for the entire 7 hours. I was amazed that Cathy could do so well.

 

We saw almost everything that Toledo has to offer. If you like El Greco (which we don’t), this is your place to visit. He lived and painted here. We visited two Synagogues that have been restored. All Jews were kicked out of Spain in 1492, at which time the synagogues were repurposed as Churches. They have now been turned into museums about Jewish Culture. Spain is trying.

We had lunch at an outdoor restaurant. Once again the Patatas Braves didn't measure up. I will keep trying.

 

The highlight of a visit to Toledo is a tour of the main Cathedral of Toledo: Saint Iglesia. If Gold decoration and religious painting are your thing, this is the place of your dreams. Our guide insisted this is the most important Church in Spain. It certainly is one of the most opulent. The amount of gold, silver and precious paintings in this Church is exceptional. We have a difficult time dealing with it, because of our politics and values. Our guide was very understanding and kept reminding us that almost all great art in Spain is religious at its core. She was trying to get us to separate the two. None the less, the Cathedral and the wealth contained within it are amazing. The strangest painting for me was St. Christopher. It looked like a billboard it was so tall. Our guide says it was from the 1700's. It could be on Sunset Strip it is so enormous and modern looking. One of the weirdest things is a tradition that when a Cardinal is buried in the Church, his Cardinal hat is suspended from the ceiling over his tomb, it slowly disintegrates and when it finally falls, the Cardinal is assumed to be in Heaven. needless to say, all the hats in the cathedral are still suspended over the tombs.I asked our guide if this was standard Catholic tradition, she said no, it is unique to this church. At any rate as you walk through the Church and look up you can easily spot a recently deceased Cardinal.

 

We returned to Madrid exhausted from the day, but glad we have seen Toledo. If you get to Madrid, you should spend a day there, I only hope you have a guide as knowledgeable as ours.

 

We returned to our hotel about 6:30 and immediately ordered a bottle of wine sent to our room. We were too exhausted to go the bar!

 

We went to dinner at an excellent restaurant quite near the hotel in Chueca. The restaurant Roostiq was exceptional. Cathy stated and I agreed, if we lived in Madrid, we would eat there once a week!

I finally found the Tortilla of my dreams (Eggs, potatoes covered with truffles), exceptional crunchy bread, Chicken with a great tomato Sauce, and Caramelized Artichokes. What a dinner! We had a great wine and to top it off an the creamiest Cheesecake ever that they served with Amaretto. Wow what a dinner!

 

We walked back to the hotel to try and burn some of the calories off! This is another must eat at restaurants if you go to Madrid. The entire bill for this extravagance was just $ 116. It is going to hurt when we return to LA and start paying LA prices in restaurants!