Wanderung 17

No Rain in Spain, not even on the Plain!

April-May 2008

Thursday May 1st 2008

Noon position: Toledo, Spain.

Bob:

After a nice breakfast at the Hotel Martin, we assembled all our cameras and spare batteries, the GPS and our wallets, we headed off into downtown Toledo with our map in hand. Both the map and the GPS turned out to be necessary to navigate in Toledo's narrow, twisty, but oh-so-scenic streets. Curling into town to the Plaza Commercial, we continued on to visit the Alcazar, but were disappointed to find it closed for renovations. My next choice was the El Greco museum because the paintings I have seen so far by El Greco were really impressive. But after carefully wending our way over hill and down dale across the maze of tiny streets and blind alleys, we once again found that it was closed for renovations. In desperation we tried the historic Jewish Synagogue just down the street, but that was closed because it was the 1st of May, apparently an official holiday in Spain.

A bit frustrated, we paused to have lunch in a small bar/cafe that offered spaghetti dishes while we considered what to do next. Spain has outlawed smoking in many public places, but apparently bars can opt out of that restriction if they carefully post that fact out in front. The bar we ate at had such a proclamation out front, but since it was 12:00 noon and no self-respecting Spaniard would have lunch that early, we were the first customers of the day. That meant no one was actively producing clouds of carcinogens and the place didn't reek too badly, so I could enjoy my food.

Afterwards we did a bit of shopping where we watched artisans work and found a nice damascene pendant for Monika and a medallion of Don Quixote with Sancho Panza for our curio cabinet, both very pretty. We decided to try to see the Toledo Cathedral, partly because it was just a couple of short blocks downhill from us and by this time we were tired enough to try to economize on how far we had to walk! Although we had to circle the building completely to find the hidden entrance, it was at least open for sightseeing at a very businesslike 7 Euros each entrance fee (and very strictly no pictures allowed inside!).

Monika:

Note the day, and remember that in all of Europe, May 1st, the "day of the worker", is an official holiday. We didn't. We set out, after a rather good breakfast at the hotel for 6 Euros, to see the Alcazar, the El Greco museum, and the museum Santa Cruz. When we got to the Alcazar, we walked once around the rather impressive structure but everywhere there could be an entrance, there was a closed gate. At the final closed gate, there was a sign "Closed during renovations". Strike one. Well, we thought, let us forge on to the El Greco museum. We slowly meandered through the narrow streets and alleys, taking pictures all along. Along one church were beautiful flowers. Altogether, the city makes a very clean and livable impression. No motorscooters to pollute the air, and it seemed the streets are being washed down every morning.

We stopped at a damascene store, where we could watch artisans work, laying fine gold threads into the metal. I picked out a beautiful damascene pendant with a delicate bird in the middle. We also watched the two artisans for a while. We the continued our quest for the El Greco museum with GPS and map and indeed finally found it - closed, of course. However, it was at a place overlooking the Tagus, so we could at least get some panoramic pictures of the other side of the Tagus. A synagogue - praised in Frommers - clued us in why we did not seem to have any luck: it was May 1st!.

By now it was lunchtime. When we saw a little restaurant that had pictures of different plates of spaghetti, we stopped for lunch. Bob had spaghetti with mushrooms, and I had spaghetti with meat sauce. They both were quite delicious, and we shared. Thus fortified, we were ready to tackle the cathedral. We first found an entrance to the central plaza with beautiful arched walkway. It had a small gift store but closed gates to the cathedral. So we started to walk around the cathedral and, of course, first found the "Salida". A sign directed us to the "Entrada" at the very opposite of where we were. So we kept walking around the cathedral (a rather big place!) until we got to the clock gate, where we could pay the rather steep price of 7 Euros each. We decided not to be cheap and got our entrance tickets.


 


 

Bob:

Frommer's guide describes the cathedral as "gothic" and in a sense it was, but I would actually call it a very early version of Gothic that had less extremely-pitched vaulting on the ceilings and much thicker, sturdier pillars in the nave than would be true of later Gothic cathedrals. The form was also more of a big box with compartments inside rather than what I would consider a true or pure Gothic form of a cross-shaped nave and transept.

That said, the Toledo Cathedral was truly huge and, on the whole, quite pretty. Most of the outside wall was devoted to nice chapels of various saints or popes, some with sarcophagi that probably had the saint in person, so to speak. The altar was absolutely enormous, maybe 100 feet high and 30 feet wide, all of which was covered with gold leaf (although some of it may have been solid gold or gold plate). But that much glittering gold was for me closer to wretched excess rather than a tasteful celebration of faith, but that's probably the "Lake Woebegone Lutheran" in me talking.

In the choir stalls across from the altar we could see the carved folding seats, all of which had a unique pattern. The backs of the seats were always carved with some holy or historical scene, but the arms and undersides of the seats were completely different. The arms of many of the seats looked like gargoyles, and the scenes on the underside were distinctly secular in nature. One scene definitely looked like a thief stealing something from a chest, another one looked like the proverbial three monkeys clowning around, and still others had mythical themes like a dragon and serpent fighting and things like that. Now that was both unexpected and quite interesting. I would have dearly loved to take the time to go all through the choir seats and carefully examine each scene to see if I could make out what the woodcarver of 600-800 years ago was trying to express, but the seats were roped off and we could only view the ones that the clerical authorities had lifted the seats on.

Although no pictures were allowed in the cathedral, but when we crossed an atrium to get to a side chapel we could take some pictures of the large and well-done frescoes on the walls. The lower part of many of the frescoes was deteriorated due to weathering, probably, but enough remained to show how beautiful they originally were. The side chapel had a restored ceiling that was absolutely gorgeous, and if I understood the signs correctly the rest of that chapel was slowly being restored to its original state. Two dead bodies were encased in sarcophagi there, but my lack of Spanish prevented me from finding out exactly who they were.

The sacristy was open and if you ever visit that cathedral make sure to take the time to view the collection of El Greco's paintings, particularly those of the saints. Other painters were also represented and all in all it was an extensive religiously-themed art collection. The collection does include two very nice secular paintings, one of a child playing and one of young folks playing either an old form of Bocce or lawn bowling or some other game, but those paintings are hidden high up on a wall in a chamber with religious vestments so you can't really get a very good look at them. I can kind of understand that, but I really wish if the church doesn't want to display them properly that they would donate or sell them to one of the local art museums where we could at least find out who the artist was and get a decent look at them.

Monika:

For seven Euros we weren't even allowed to take pictures inside the cathedral! But the cathedral was enormous. The altar was again in the middle, and smaller chapels all around. We started to walk around, and walked into the sacristy where there were a lot of pictures. Here we finally saw El Greco pictures, individual pictures of the apostles and a large picture "Spoliation of Christ". This was fascinating, because everyone of the people crowding around Christ had a different expression. You could really stand and look at it for a while. The ceilings in the sacristy also were beautifully painted.

Back out in the nave, we saw the beautifully carved alabaster at the back of the altar area and finally the altar itself. It was a monstrosity of lots of different rather colorful pictures. But across from the altar was the choir area, and we were allowed to walk through it and look at the choirchairs. The backs were ornately carved, the armrests had different carved gargoyles, but, oh my, when the seats were up, underneath were carvings that were not quite theological. One was the backside of the three monkeys (don't hear, don't see, don't talk); another one I enjoyed seemed to be a guy holding a hamburger in one hand and french fries in the other (or the 14th century equivalent). My hands itched to take a picture; but Bob was right behind me and kept me on the straight and narrow.

We also were allowed to go into into the walk around the central plaza that we had seen from the gift shop. There were beautiful paintings all along the wall, and since this was "outside" we could take pictures. At the other side of the atrium was a little room, with beautiful paintings along the wall and on the ceiling. A sign explained, that they were restoring the paintings, and indeed, the ceiling looked like it had been restored. The walls still looked like they could use "a lick of paint".

Bob:

Making another stab at seeing some art, we walked back across the city to the Santa Cruz museum of art and sculpture, but that was also closed either due to renovations or because it was May 1st, I wasn't sure which. Strike three! We were getting a little tired of walking up, down, and all around the hill of Toledo at that point, so we retraced our steps downhill to our hotel to relax and take turns using the computer to update our journals for the rest of the afternoon. After a light dinner in our room we did go out once more in the evening to see some Roman ruins that, according to our map, were located just a couple blocks away from our hotel room.

Monika:

Outside of the cathedral were tents with food items. There were bakery items, cheeses, hams, and even one stand with lots of different olives. We wandered through it, but we weren't hungry anymore so we just kept going. When we came back to the cathedral gift shop to buy some postcards, they were closed already. So we thought we might still take in one museum, the Santa Cruz museum. First, however, we were drawn into one more damascene shop, that had little medallions, that would fit perfectly into our display case in the hall. We picked up a little medallion with Don Quixote and Sancho that appealed to both of us. It sure is fun buying a souvenir that you know is not made in China, since you are watching the artisan at work!

We now found our way to the Santa Cruz museum, and guess what, it also was closed. Well, three strikes and we were ready to go back to the hotel for some rest and relaxation!


 


 

Bob:

Folks seemed to be celebrating the 1st of May as we walked over to the ruins, and a little kiddie carousel in the park was packed with children, all squealing with delight. Our map did not lie and the ruins were just down the hill from us in what appeared to be yet another city park. Since we don't have much that is 2,000 years old in the U.S.A., I found it quite fascinating to walk in an among the ruins of what I think was an old hippodrome. The racetrack was a huge rectangular loop with rounded edges almost half a kilometer long on the long side and about 100 meters or so wide on the short side. One end quite clearly had gates and arches supporting seating for the spectators, and I even saw the remains of steps running up the side to what would have been the upper levels.

One large arched entrance to the hippodrome or racetrack was still intact after all those years. Some of the larger stones around the base had incised patterns on them, but I couldn't be sure if those patterns were the remains of inscriptions of some kind, the chisel marks from the original quarrying, or simply the effects of 2,000 years of weathering on granite. There were some signs giving us information about the area, but they were, predictably, in Spanish so we couldn't glean a lot from them. Still, at least the ruins were open (!) and it was a very interesting way to end our day.

Monika:

After rest, relaxation, and some food I was ready for some more exploring. On our map and on the map in Frommer's was something called Roman Ruins. Frommer did not mention anything else, but I was intrigued. It was not too far from our hotel outside the city wall. We wandered over there, through the little park that lies between us and the city gate. At the city gate we turned south. Looking up at the city wall we saw what looked like an escalator going up to the top of the embankment. We noted it for tomorrow, what a neat way to get to the top.

Down below, however, we did find the ruins of an old roman hippodrome from the 1st century. At its heyday it was 400 meters long and 100 meters wide. Now only some archways, stairs, and drainage pipes remained. There were no further signs, and no one seemed to pay much attention to it. For the children it seemed to be a great place to climb around. I couldn't help and wonder what you might find, if you started to excavate around the still existing structures.

Copyright 2008 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
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