Holy Toledo!

Sorry, couldn't resist the post title.







On Wednesday we decided to try our day trip to Toledo again. We got up earlier, so that we might beat the crowds and get an earlier train. We walked down to the Atocha train station and successfully navigated the purchase of 5 round trip tickets to Toledo. My Spanish was getting a little better.

(Opposite this babyhead statue at Atoche train station is another with its eyes closed.)

It’s only a 30 minute train trip to Toledo, so we were there before noon. From the train station, we took the tourist bus up to the old central city. Toledo is similar to the medieval hill towns (Gubbio, Assissi) we had visited in Italy on our trip there three summers ago. Lots of up and down walking in the hot midday sun. It was dry and very hot.

The main attraction in Toledo is the Cathedral, perhaps the most significant in Spain. It is huge and dominates the old center city. I think, however, that the experience actually left most of us feeling flat. Perhaps we’ve seen one too many medieval hill town churches - cathedrals - and they seem to serve as some reminder of misused accumulation of wealth.




No where is that feeling more evident than in the Sacristy of the Cathedral. Rick Steves is accurate in describing it as a “mini-Prado.” Paintings by Goya, Caravaggio and too many El Grecos to count. Millions and millions of dollars worth of paintings crammed in one large room in this enormous, dark, cathedral.

After our tour of the cathedral we headed for lunch at Cafeteria Cason Lopez de Toledo. Very good gazpacho andaluza. Liam had venison “tacos”, which turned out to be chunks of local venison with potatoes. Local game is the specialty in Toledo, so it is hard to have any meal that doesn’t somehow seem more wintery than in-season.

We decided to walk back to the train station. It was all downhill. And hot. Fortunately, there was a nice little cerveceria across from the train station where we were able to quaff a few cold beverages.

We were back in Madrid by 5.

One major miss on our sightseeing in Madrid was the Royal Palace. Frankly, we’d been trying to balance the museum and other sightseeing with relaxing in our neighborhood and trying to get a feel for the rhythm of Madrid. So, after getting refreshed at the apartment, we headed out for a final walk before sunset and arrived at the Royal Palace just as the sun was starting to go down. It’s an impressive palace from the outside, we’ll have to tour it on our next visit.

From the Royal Palace, we walked back to the Plaza Mayor neighborhood, stopping at Mercado de San Miguel, which is just adjacent to the plaza. The Mercado is a large open building with stalls of purveyors of everything from fresh seafood to fresh produce to caviar to artisanal chocolates to tapas. The scene is mostly high end - from the purveyors to the locals to the tourists. It’s not getting samples at the farmers’ market. Think Balducci’s with stalls where you can get a drink or some tapas. Dylan, Liam and Jenny had sushi there - the purveyor was an Australian who had spent 12 years in Japan.

After our brief stop at the Mercado, we had dinner just off the plaza at KitchenStories, whose motto is “Hemingway never ate here.” The food was good, not stellar, but what we expected from a place just off the plaza. On our last night in Madrid before an early train to Granada, we needed something easy. This place fit the bill.

As we walked back through Plaza Mayor to our apartment, we finally discovered the purpose of the stage we saw being built in the plaza during our stay: a performance of Beethoven to be conducted by Daniel Barenboim on the upcoming weekend. Too bad we were leaving!