The Time Zone Conundrum


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Europe » Spain » Castile-La Mancha » Toledo
August 8th 2016
Published: June 7th 2017
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Issy sleeps in, so I read an article on Spain and time zones while I wait for her to stir. It seems that Spain is in the wrong time zone. It's west of most of England, but is in the same time zone as European countries that are east of England. It's been in the wrong time zone since early in World War 2 when Hitler came to Spain to try to talk Franco into Spain becoming Germany's ally. The two leaders agreed that an important first step would be for them both to be in the same time zone. I'm not quite sure why they thought that this was an important step, but it seems that this first step then became the only step. The article says that Spaniards sleep nearly an hour less on average than other Europeans. They also work longer hours, but are less productive. I wonder how they work out how productive they are. I suppose they must count something. I wonder what they count. I hope no one counts what I do at work every day. Apparently a lot of Spaniards complain that they get too little time to spend at home, which it seems has a lot to do with siestas. The article includes an interview with a man who says that he hangs around at work for three hours every day in Madrid waiting for his bosses to finish their siestas. There is apparently some pressure from Spaniards to get Spain put back in the right time zone again, as this will stop them having siestas and therefore give them more time at home. I'm not quite sure I follow the logic. It sounds a bit like the Queenslanders arguing against daylight savings because it will make their curtains fade and upset the cows.

We buy tickets for the hop on hop off bus. The man I buy the tickets from doesn't speak English so he can't tell me where the bus stops. The tickets don't have a map on them showing where the stops are, and the stops don't have signs on them. I wonder how anyone knows where to catch the bus from. It's a tourist bus. All its passengers are tourists so it's not as if they'll know because they catch it to work every day. We ask someone in a shop and they direct us to a random place on the side of a street. They tell us that if we wave hard enough when the bus comes past it might stop for us.

The bus takes us past the train station, and then up a hill on the opposite side of the river to a viewing point called Mirador del Valle. The views of the town from here are absolutely stunning. The audio guide tells us about the painter El Greco. I had read previously that he had a strong association with Toledo, and I had always assumed that he was Spanish. It seems that he was actually born in Crete. His real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos, and El Greco just means "The Greek". I hope there weren't too many other Greeks in Toledo at the time, or this might have gotten a bit confusing. The bus continues around the outside of the town, in through a gate called the Puerta Bisagra, and then up a hill to the main square, the Plaza de Zocodover, where we have lunch. There are lots of tourists here; I wonder if they were here last night as well. I get the feeling that maybe we only explored the quiet part of town yesterday.

We go into the Alcazar de Toledo which was previously a fortress and is now used as a military museum. It's enormous and right on the top of the hill, so it can be seen from most of Toledo. It's built on several levels, with towers on each of its four corners and a central courtyard. The audio guide tells us that there's been a fortification of some sort on this site since third century Roman times, and the current fortress was largely built during the 16th century. It was severely damaged in a famous siege during the Spanish Civil War, and then became a symbol of Spanish Nationalism. The museum is on five levels and gives some strong insights into Spanish history. The main impression we get from the museum is that the Spanish seem to have been involved in an awful lot of wars.

Issy has a siesta and we then catch the hop on hop off bus back up to Mirador del Valle. We had read that coming here at sunset is a "must to do" in Toledo, and the views are indeed stunning.

We walk back down to the river and see signs telling us that we're on the Don Quixote route. We later read that the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes' character started the first of his three journeys from Toledo. There is apparently now an officially recognised Don Quixote tourist route that runs for 2,000 kilometres through Spain and goes through nearly 150 towns.

We walk back up the other side of the river to Plaza de Zocodover and have dinner at a restaurant in a square near the Plaza. I have grilled octopus again, and again it is to die for. I wonder why the grilled octopus is so good here. It's not as if it's got anything to do with how fresh it is; we're about 500 kilometres from the sea. We find our way back to the hotel, and have drinks on our giant terrace. We agree that we could very happily live on our giant terrace.


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10th August 2016

great photo!

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