Toledo

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When we decided to go to Madrid, one of my top “must-see”’s was the city of Toledo. I lived 4 years in the Toledo in Ohio and very much wanted to visit its namesake, which, conventiently enough, is located just an hour or so southwest of the city center.

We took the bus from Madrid very early and though I slept a good deal of the ride, it was also an interesting chance to get a feel for the Spanish countryside. It is very different from both the central europan landscape that I saw on my Dresden/Prague trip, but also from the East-Coast and Midwest landscapes that I have known for most of my life. On a large scale, it is very flat, but with low rollowing hills, very different from the midwest. It was also very brown, almost desertlike in appearance. Perhaps that is just because of the drought that Beth’s friend told us they were having here, but I don’t know. We have had droughts in NJ and the landscape does not turn flat out brown like that!

One thing that I have noticed in Europe, and was particularly true in Spain, is that Europeans love to use those permanent tower cranes that we usually only see in big cities for building skyscrapers. However here, they use them for just about every construction project! I saw them building single-family homes with them! I do not think I have seen a single drivable crane since I got to Europe. On this bus ride, I think we must have passed about 50 or 75 of them!

We got to Toledo late in the afternoon and, after getting our bearings, set out for our first destination the ruins of an old Roman colusseum just outside the old city center. I must say, that the ruins were not much to look at. Just the foundations remained and a few arches and passageways from the basement. It was mainly just impressive to walk around and touch things built by a civilization that was quite alive and thriving more than 2000 years ago. It is impressive how much they got around. I tend to think of Rome in terms of its presence in present day Italy, Greece, Turkey and Palestine, but they were all over Europe and North Africa!

Next we headed up to the old city center. I should mention here something about the geography and layout of Toledo. Needless to say, it is very different from the Toledo in Ohio. It was originaly a Roman city, which then became the capital of the Visigoth Empire in the 6th century, was taken over by Muslims in 711 and came back into Chrisitan rulers in 1085. It was probably originally settled because of its stragetic importance - a rather large hill around a bend in the Tajo River. Its old town covers the hill and is still surrounded by the medieval fortifications. The ruins we visited were at the bottom of the hill, which is a good sized one and a good tough walk to get from the bottom to top. In fact, it is so hard, that the city has installed outdoor escalators to get from the new parts of town (near the ruins) to the old town! Yes. Real escalators, cut into the side of the rock of the hill and going up several hundred feet!

Once inside the old city proper, we spent some time just walking around and taking in our bearings and seeing the feel and look of the city. It is almost unchanged since the middle ages, with narrow, hilly, windy, cobble-stone streets that zig-zag without any logic to them through the city. Sometimes you walk down a promising street only to find that it is a dead end. Then you walk through a little alleyway of a street, which then opens up into a decent sized street, sometimes even with a great view of the valley.

After walking around for a bit, we stopped by a few synagogue in the old Jewish quarter. Toledo was actually one of the more religiously tolerant cities in the middle ages, with Jews, Muslims and the seat of the Spanish Church living relatively peacefully alongside one another. That changed sometime around the 16th century, when the Jews (and I do not know about the Muslims) were evicted, and most of the synagogues were turned into churches or chapels. Today however, they are restored to their synagogue decorations and used as museums. The first one we went in was not particularly intersting, but the second was essentially a museum on the history, religion, and culture of Judiasm. It was very interesting.
After the Synagogues, we headed over to the Cathedral in Madrid, which is one of the largest cathedrals in the world. It is a huge Spanish-style gothic building (though with a few other architectonic elements thrown in) that was designed to be fitting as the seat of the Spanish church. Unfortunately, inside they have used most of the sanctuary as a museum, with little dividers set up for the exhibits, showing the relics and holdings of the church, so you cannot really get a feel for the original feel of the church. I have to say though that, as medieval gothic cathedrals go, it was not one of my favorites. I love Gothic architecture, with all of its detail and decoration, but this cathedral went a bit too far, even for me. The altar was a massive painting/sculpture that must have had every scene from the Bible exhibited at least two or three times. I walked around a little bit, saw the graves of several more prominent Spanish Kings and Queens (notably, Ferdinand and Isabella, who sent Columbus on his way to the new world), and then went on my way.

Unfortunately, the central Alcazar (spanish castle) is closed for repairs and is pretty much hidden by the scaffolding around it. We saw it, but could not really even get a feel for it. More interesting for me was the entrance gate to the city that we exited through. It had a great big picture of Toledo’s seal (a two-headed eagle) and was all lit up with floodlights so that you could see it well, even by night.

It was an interesting excursion and we saw a lot of cool stuff, though definitely not the best excursion that I have made on this trip.

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