Anyone who may be getting to this blog in any way other than
my links on Facebook may have noticed my short post about Toledo a couple of days ago.
This post will be the promised continuation of that train of thought. I am in Granada now, and I'm only just now getting around to posting this because I haven't had wi-fi since Madrid. I'm planning on doing a Granada post tomorrow night.
My stay in Toledo was short, just a day and a half and two
nights. Toledo is just a half hour train ride from Madrid, but the reason why
my first day was just a half was because I spent the first part of that day
touring the Reina Sofia modern art museum in Madrid. Modern art isn't necessarily my cup of tea, but there was one painting there – Picasso’s Guernica – which was absolutely worth
the trip. Unfortunately they don’t let you take pictures of it, so if you’re interested
in seeing it you’ll have to google it. Picasso painted it in response to the
aerial bombing of Guernica, a town in northern Spain, during the Spanish Civil
War. In Picasso’s signature Cubist style, the painting stirringly conveys the
pain, terror, and chaos of the event as it must have been for the people who
experienced it. I have loved and been impressed by many pieces of art, but
rarely have I been so moved as I was by Guernica.
Anyone who wants to start a war should be required to spend ten minutes viewing
and pondering that painting.
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| Madrid's train station has a miniature jungle that looks like it's out of a set from Jurassic Park |
After the Reina Sofia I hopped on the train to Toledo and
got in to town around 3:30. Toledo is a medieval city, strategically placed up
on a hill and with a river protecting it on three sides. As such, it’s a steep
climb to get to the center of town. I took the city bus, which winds through
impossibly narrow streets and up to the Plaza de Zocodover, the city’s central
square. Total time from when my train arrived to when I got off the bus at
Plaza de Zocodover was probably 15-20 minutes, which was nice. My hotel is a
great little budget place called Hostal Centro, right off of Plaza de
Zocodover. For not too much more than what a hostel bed would cost, I have a
nice, comfortable little room with a bathroom, in a perfect location right in
the center of town. The staff is professional and friendly (I say “staff” but
I’ve only actually seen one person, the lady at the front desk, so far) and
seem happy to indulge me by not jumping immediately to English when they
realize by my accent that I’m not a native Spanish speaker. I really appreciate
it when people let me get by in the local language, giving me the chance to
practice and get better. They win a special place in my heart when they help me
with my language skills rather than revert immediately to English in order to
get rid of me as quickly as possible.
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| A typical street in Toledo |
Before I go any further, I should give you a little bit of
background on Toledo. First, it is an old place; people have been living here
for more than 2,000 years. Toledo, or whatever it was called in ancient times, wasn't much of anything until the Moors came from North Africa and established
the Muslim kingdom of Al-Andalus in the 8th century AD. It became an
important city under Spanish Muslim rule for more than 300 years, during which
time Muslims, Jews, and Christians all lived here and coexisted peacefully. The
city was conquered in 1085 by Spanish Christians as part of the Reconquista,
and it remained an important city under Christian rule, eventually flowering in
the late Middle Ages into the religious and political capital of Spain. But
then the Spanish monarchy moved to nearby Madrid in the 16th
century, and Toledo became little more than a novelty. That may be why it has
changed very little since then, which is fortunate for us, because today in
Toledo we see a medieval city which looks very much like it did centuries ago.
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| Another street shot in Toledo |
I wanted to give that brief introduction to Toledo’s history
before I go any further because it was Toledo’s historic character which struck
me most as I first began to explore it. I didn’t have much of a plan or
itinerary for the rest of that day, so I decided to get a map and wander around
the city for a bit. While not strictly pedestrianized, the city’s streets are
so narrow and labyrinthine that driving a car through the old town would be a
fool’s errand. Many of the streets are covered overhead by old Moorish-style
canvas canopies, which I imagine would be essential in the summer sun (it’s
still not very hot here yet though – about mid 70s and sunny). The buildings
look like they could be (and probably are) at least a few centuries old. I know
for a fact that the cathedral, which is the city’s main attraction, is from the
late Middle Ages (construction took place from 1226 – 1495). But in addition to
the city’s age, you can also feel the Moorish influence, such as in the
Arabesque keyhole arches you find here and there, in the geometric designs
featured in various bits of wall art, in the labyrinthine street plan, etc. You
can tell that this is not like the rest of Europe just by walking the city’s
streets, and that is probably a big reason why it has been and remains a major
tourist attraction.
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| The Moorish influence in Toledo is evident |
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| A Moorish-style courtyard at the Santa Cruz Museum in Toledo |
And now that I’ve mentioned tourism, I think it is only fair
to note that Toledo is majorly touristy (and not in a good way). It doesn’t
make this a bad place to visit, but it certainly doesn’t help. There are
probably more cheap souvenir shops than there are restaurants, bars, and hotels
combined. There is a little cart-driven “train” that putts tourists around town
and out to exterior viewpoints around the city. There is even a little store
that specializes in “American” goods (featured in its window display is a box
of Cap’n Crunch). All of that can be a bit of a drag, as it begins to feel like
the city is just a cheap show and you, the visitor, are just a slack-jawed
yokel there to open your wallet and shut off your brain. When I put Toledo on
my list of places to visit in Spain, I hoped to find a place where Spain’s
historic mix of cultures was still alive, where I would be able to catch a
glimpse of what this place was like when it was under Moorish rule. And you do
get a bit of that, which still makes this place worth coming to, but you also
get a healthy dose of the less savory stuff too.
Anyway, I’m done lecturing now and for the rest of this post
I’ll stick to talking about the sights I saw on the next day, my only full day
in Toledo. I got a late start, as my first taste of Spanish TV kept me up later
than I normally have been (they had “My Name is Earl” dubbed in Spanish – not
much lost in translation – and also a great soccer match). I wasn’t too worried
about the late start though because my sightseeing agenda was not terribly
full. My plan was to see the cathedral in the morning, walk over to the Santo
Tome chapel to see an El Greco painting, and then visit the Santa Cruz museum
in the afternoon. I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of interest to say
about it all. The cathedral was cool, with clear reflections of the broader
Gothic style of architecture but with Spanish Catholic embellishments (lots of
gold). The El Greco painting (El Greco was a great Greek painter with a
distinctive style who lived and worked in Spain during the late Renaissance)
was exquisite, and doubly cool because it is still housed in the church that he
painted it for. The Santa Cruz museum houses fifteen other El Greco paintings,
which were also very good. El Greco isn’t my favorite artist, but I can
certainly appreciate his excellent work, and one thing I like about him is that
you can instantly tell an El Greco painting apart from any other just by
glancing at it. The Santa Cruz museum was also cool because it is in a
Renaissance building but with a Moorish-style interior, complete with
landscaped courtyard and fountain. After
the Santa Cruz museum I was kind of out of stuff to do, so I wandered the
streets some more to make sure I got plenty of good pictures (which is really
probably the highlight of visiting Toledo), and then turned in to my hotel room
to do some planning for my next destination (Granada) and to write this post.
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| Toledo Cathedral exterior |
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| Toledo Cathedral interior |
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| An El Greco painting - not my favorite artist, but he has a very distinctive style |
It’s almost Spanish dinner time now and I promised myself
that I would eat something worthwhile for dinner tonight, so I’m off to do just
that. Thank you for reading, and look for my next post from Granada probably on
Thursday.
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