Viajé Toledo

As if I didn't feel like enough of a tourist living here in Madrid, this past weekend I got to play tourist in a new Spanish city: Toledo. Tandem (my Spanish language school) has events every week for students to experience Spanish culture while practicing their language skills, so I was able to join about 17 of my classmates on a day trip to a new city. Toledo is about a 45-55 minute bus ride away from Madrid so bright and early Savannah and I got up and headed out of town.

Our day was half structured and half free, with the morning consisting of a guided tour of the city and several important buildings. Our tour guild, Sonja, spoke to us almost entirely in Spanish which was both fun and challenging. I was honestly surprised by how much I was able to understand. She made a point to teach us vocabulary along the way, and used simple verb tenses so we had an easier time learning about the city. I didn't catch everything, but I knew enough to understand the stories and most of the history. It helped that she had a binder full of information she could use as a visual/written guide in case our listing skills were not up to par.

Walking into Toledo. Our tour guild, Sonja, is in white. 

Traveling to Toledo made me realize just how incredibly large Madrid is. Toledo has less than 100,000 people in comparison to the nearly 3.2 million people living in Madrid. I could feel the change as soon as I stepped off the bus. Streets were quieter, people wandered in the streets more slowly, and our group was frequently the only people at a historical site. It was a relief. Though I feel like I'm adjusting to city life at a decent rate, it was nice to take a step back and feel like I had a little more room.

Another difference our group quickly noticed (and many complained about) was that Toledo has hills that put Madrid to shame. On our walk into the city center from the bus stop I ran ahead to take a picture of the group climbing up a hill (below) and was cheered on/laughed at by my fellow travelers who thought I was trying to get a workout by doing hill sprints. No amigos, I just wanted to capture your beautiful faces. Even I'm not crazy enough to run hills in jean shorts carrying a camera while it's 90 degrees in the sun.

Two distinct styles of architecture that can be seen in Toledo

Toledo feels like a city that endures. It's history spans centuries and you can see it in the very stones. As I learned from Sonja, the city has survived Roman, Arab, and Spanish rule and each culture has left it's mark. It passed between kings and queens of different cultures and religions and has a surprising history of religious tolerance. For many years Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together maybe not with loving enthusiasm, but with relative acceptance. America: take note.

I'm trying not to turn this into a history lesson, but hopefully that explains some of the architectural differences in the monuments and buildings. I took a picture of Sonja's explanation so I would remember for later.

These are just a couple examples obviously but significant portions of the city are (or look because of careful reconstructions) this old.

One of the museums that we visited with Sonja was the Museo de los Concilios y la Cultura Visigoda. It is an old Roman church with beautiful art all along the walls depicting Catholic images, like that of the last supper. But what I liked most about this portion of our tour was the story Sonja told us about the building's construction.

Whats that at the top? 

Apparently, when the church was being built and designed the artists sampled several different styles to create the image on the main wall.This makes for some very beautiful art but it ultimately had some interesting religious ramifications. As you can see there is a traditionally Catholic art (not sure what to call it, I'm a storyteller not an art history major so don't judge) on either side of the window in the center, but near the top is writing in another language. If you are much more skilled than I am and could zoom in to the top of this photo enough to read it, you would see that it is actually copied out sections of the Koran.

Yes. This is a Catholic Church with passages of the Koran on the walls. Yay for religious tolerance?! Not really. In reality, the artist just thought that the lettering was beautiful so put it into his work. Because, get this, he couldn't read. Illiteracy is bad, people.

Eggs: they aren't just for breakfast anymore.

Gazpacho

After working up a sweat walking the city and visiting museums, our group took a break to taste the local food at a traditional Spanish restaurant. I tried their gazpacho which is a cold tomato based Spanish soup. The other dish is basically scrambled eggs with asparagus. If I haven't mentioned it yet people here eat a ton of eggs, especially at lunch and dinner.

After lunch we were on our own to explore the city, shop, and try not to sun burn the ever loving crap out of ourselves. A group of us opted to try to beat the heat (it was 38 C, so just over 100 F) by taking a train tour around the city. It offered an audio in both Spanish and English so we could hear a bit more about the different historical sites and gave me a chance to take some more holistic photos of the city. I can't say the ride kept me as cold as I would have liked, but was cool. Bad jokes, bad jokes.

And of course we needed to take a group photo. This is about the only one I'm in since I was behind the camera for majority of the trip.

My and my classmates recording our presence in Toledo

Our last stop before head home was a tasty one. (I think I'm allowed to do that now. Call Madrid "home" for a while?) Toledo is famous for several things: historic architecture, gold inlay jewelry, high quality knives/swords, and (my personal favorite) Mazapán.

If you haven't tasted this particular sweet, I highly suggest it. It is made out of powdered sugar, egg, and almonds and baked to perfection. In Toledo they often make extravagant art out of the sweet but it is also sold in smaller cake-like chunks for every-day consumption. And let me tell you, you will want to eat it every day. I didn't photograph the kind I bought (I might have eaten it too quickly for that thought to occur), but these are some of the fancy one's that the shop sold.

Overall, Toledo was definitely worth the visit.

Also, I almost forgot. This is a Roman road. Roman people walked on it. Literally.

August 27, 2016