"We're getting out of here like the Moores!"

Today, Christian Johnson, Stephanie Schenck, and I went to Toledo. It's about 30 minutes by high speed train from Madrid and only about 18 Euros roundtrip a person. It was very fun.



First of all, if you take a train to Toledo, walk from the train station (which was probably my favorite building) to the city. As you do, you get to cross an awesome old footbridge over the river that runs around Toledo and through the huge city gates. And then you climb the stairs along the wall the old city and look out the surrounding area and a lot of the newer parts of the city. It was kind of sad that these beautiful long stone staircases were covered in litter and graffiti. The stairs come out a few blocks from the main square on top of the hill where old Toledo sits.

Christian and Stephanie in Front of the Train Station

Toledo is known for its gold work and swords. Most cities have souvenir shops of one kind or another (Granada had knick knack shops of arab influence), Toledo's shops are filled with knives and swords. They are alllllll over! We wound through the city more or less in the direction of the Cathedral for about 20 minutes, enjoying the architecture, and the views from the hill. One of the most interesting things to me about Spain is that buildings are all connected to each other along the same block. The only thing that separates buildings are streets and alleys or courtyards. Other than that, one wall of a building forms the wall of the adjacent building. Usually each block is one solid building. Because of that, you have a lot of building materials and styles all smashed up against each other.

Me in an Alley

Most of the buildings in Toledo are made of brick or stone, and most of the newer buildings are then covered in plaster and some are even then painted to look like bricks or stone. Also many of the doorways look to have a strong Moorish (Arabic/pre-reconquest Spanish) influence. The top is a arch, but it's almost a full three quarters of a circle, instead of just half, and then it goes straight to the ground. Also there was even a couple of walls of a house that looked like they were just kind of including any rocks they found along with the bricks. They could be seen because the plaster covering them fell away.

A Seam Between Two Buildings

The Cathedral was beautiful from the outside. It was smaller than the one in Granada, but the outside was much more ornate, probably because the Cathedral in Granada was built with waning funds. It even had a full larger than life stone carving of the last supper above the lintel of the main front doors. Another interesting aspect of the Cathedral was how you could see when different pieces were added on because a different color or shape of stone was used.

Cathedral

Unfortunately, due to various circumstances this morning, we didn't get to Toledo until about 2:25 PM and because we were having Thanksgiving dinner that night, we had to catch the train back at 5:30. So, we stopped at a little cafe for lunch around 4 and I had a Womba Bocadillo and Stephanie and Christian both had plates of Paella. Paella is a traditional Spanish dish made with Saffron rice and lots of seafood. Bocadillos are Spanish sandwiches made on a piece of bread much like a baguette. The Womba Bocadillo had what tasted like red pasta sauce on it with very thinly cut pieces of pork loin with cheese on top. It was delicious.

Womba Bocadillo

After lunch I bought a couple of postcards and then it was time to go. In fact, it was about 8 minutes past time to go. And whats more, because we had been just kind of meandering while looking for a place to eat, we didn't know where we were. But Stephanie and Christian whipped out the map, pointed us in the right direction, and we took off back to the station. It had taken us about 25-30 minutes to get to the top of the hill from the Station and we were planning on about 30 minutes to get back. We had about 20, so we hustled. As we were flying down the long stair cases (ever so carefully as to not trip and die falling down all of these stairs), Christian laughs and says, "We're getting out of here like the Moores!" We all had a good laugh.

Building in a Hill (We took it on the way in.)

Since we knew our way back, once we got to the top of the hill again, and because it was almost all down hill, we made it back to the station in about 15 minutes! Oh and we also didn't stop to take pictures on the way back.

Me on the train ride back