COMING SOON HOUSE ADVERTISING ads_leader
Scenic View of Toledo
This is the view of Toledo from a hillside across the river. What a gorgeous city! As my cheesy subject title suggests, today we ventured outside of our cozy town of Alcalá de Henares and up to the city of Toledo. It was a school-sponsored trip, so UA along with a couple other schools all met at the Plaza de Cervantes at 9am to board our charter bus and drive to Toledo. The drive took a little over an hour and involved me fruitlessly trying to find a comfortable position to catch a little more sleep. Soon we were at our destination and drove up a winding road to a scenic point overlooking the quiet city of Toledo. Our trip involved a guide who gave us an introduction to Toledo and pointed out some points of interest. We quickly began snapping pictures like hurried tourists then boarded the bus again. We were dropped off in front of El Puente de San Martin, or San Martin’s Bridge, which took us over the river and within the center of Toledo. From then on we would be on foot, and while it was a pleasantly sunny day it was still quite chilly. Luckily I had come prepared - two layers of pants and four layers of sweaters/jackets, plus gloves, a
Chicas!
Vanessa, Daniela, me, Kris, Lily, Jaime and Tatum scarf and a hat, probably rendered me the warmest one of the bunch. I have basically learned to ignore all meteorologists while here in Spain because so far they seem to have things backwards. I know we have the same problem with weather forecasts in the States, but I guess that I am spoiled with Arizona weather forecasts. Meteorologists in AZ have it pretty easy, because the typical forecast of “Sunny and a billion degrees, UV index off the charts,” has a 99% chance of being correct. Even if there is a little rain (which I have been told has not happened in AZ for quite a while), it quickly disappears and the heat returns. Anyway, it was supposed to be a rainy miserable day in Toledo today, so I was expecting the worst. However, it was absolutely gorgeous and a perfect day for a walking tour, so I was grateful for the error. Unfortunately it works the opposite way too, and when the forecast tells me to expect a sunny day and I walk outside to freezing rain, I am not so pleasantly surprised. Oh well, I suppose it keeps life interesting.
So, our tour began with our
Chicos!
These are all the boys from UA. Yes, there are only four of them - Zach, Buck, Rich and Tyler. When all of the girls were lined up snapping pictures of them, Daniela quipped that it was like all of us taking pictures of endangered animals in a zoo. Unfortunately she was correct - the UA boy is a rare breed. walk across the bridge. I had been warned by some of my Spanish friends that all of the streets are uphill and very steep, which I found to be correct. My friends and I were already quite sore from our soccer/sprinting the day before, so the mountain climbing did not help matters much. Toledo is a beautiful city - narrow streets lined with gorgeous old buildings and a quiet small-town atmosphere that makes it unique from cities like Madrid and Barcelona. We walked until we reached the Claustro de San Juan de los Reyes, a monastery built by Ferdinand and Isabella that was originally intended as the final resting place of kings and queens. However, when they later defeated the Moors for the final time in Granada, they decided to further celebrate (and perhaps further gloat) by burying the monarchs there. Regardless, it is an amazing building with gorgeous architecture and such attention to detail - even the ceiling was beautiful. Our guide took us around the monastery and the church within it, giving us the history and details of the building. Afterwards we walked to the Museo Sefardi, which consists of the Sinagoga del Tránsito (Transit Synagogue) and a
museum of the history of the Jewish people in Spain. Unfortunately they haven’t had the most fortunate luck in Spain (ie that whole Inquisition thing), but apparently Toledo has been more open to the Jewish and Islamic influences, which is reflected in the art and architecture of many of the buildings around Toledo. The synagogue was beautiful, perhaps a little too beautiful, because while we were all huddled in the center listening to our guide, students were snapping pictures left and right. In theory this would be fine, as long as they followed the mandated “sin flash” (without flash). However, we seem to have some listening/obeying problems because about 20 flashes went off within the time we were standing in the synagogue. Every time one of the guards surrounding us had to remind us “Sin flash!,” but sure enough a minute or two later another one would go off. It started to get a bit ridiculous, and I seriously thought we would be kicked out then and there. Miraculously we weren’t, so we continued to the museum part. After the museum we were all starving since it was about noon, but of course we are in Spain so people don’t
Example of Toledo Architecture
Jess, Rich, Jessica, Daniela and Lily even think of lunch till at least 2pm. Our whines were heard though, and we were able to take a break to eat our picnic lunches in a park overlooking the hillside. Afterwards we continued our tour to the Museo de El Greco, which apparently is in a building he used to live in. This was particularly interesting to me since just two days before I had spent an entire art class learning about El Greco and his paintings. Afterwards we went to the church of St. Thomé which houses one of El Greco’s most famous works, “The Burial of Count Orgaz.” I was just about like a kid in a candy store since we had probably spent at least twenty-five minutes of my art class studying and analyzing this very painting, and here it was right in front of me. It was quite large, spanning an entire wall, and it was hard to imagine the hard work and dedication it would take to produce such a work of art. The rest of the church was gorgeous as well, covered in gold and ornate icons echoing the age of indulgences.
After our El Greco mini-tour, we had three hours
of free time to do whatever we want. My friends and I walked down the streets, going in and out of the various shops and pastelerias (pastry shops) that we encountered. Apparently Toledo is famous for their swords, so there were sword stores everywhere. Another thing they seem to be quite good at is making plates, as there were elaborate golden plates lining every store’s walls. A Toledo specialty that I could better appreciate is the mazipan, a special pastry that tastes sort of like sugar cookie dough. After our free time we all reconvened outside of the Cathedral of Toledo, which the guide told us is the world’s third-largest cathedral. I have since read things that have pointed to the contrary, but regardless it was quite large and once again quite ornate. Inside it was breathtaking, as every inch had been carefully and thoroughly designed and decorated. We all wandered around the main cathedral as well as the art museum, treasury (if diamonds are a girl’s best friend, then rubies and emeralds are a priest’s), and the tombs of various saints. Afterward we made our way to the main plaza, where we took a small break before boarding the
The UA Group
This is a view from outside the monastery overlooking the hillside. bus to go home. The bus was considerably quieter on the way back as everyone was relaxing after a long but enjoyable day. Probably the highlight of the trip back was when Tatum realized we were driving down the street near both of our houses. Half-jokingly I asked Becky, UA’s program director, if the bus driver could possibly let us off here since the bus was stopped at a light and we were right by our houses. She asked the driver and he said yes, so the door opened and we hopped out. It was freezing outside (literally - the temperature indicator on the street said 0 degrees) and I was grateful for only walking 3 minutes home instead of 15. It was about 7pm when I got home, so I went upstairs and took a nap. Later I woke up, got ready and went to meet up with some Spanish friends at the Can Can for a little bit. It is amazing how things have changed since I got here - the time when we all went home at the beginning of the semester (because that is usually the time things wind down in the US) is the time
I went out tonight, because it isn’t until then that places actually get busy. We danced for a few hours then some of my friends and I made the cold trek home. It had been quite the day and I was glad to climb back into my warm bed and go to sleep.
COMING SOON HOUSE ADVERTISING ads_leader_blog_bottom
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 62; dbt: 0.0534s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb