Toledo day 2 (Sunday, October 12th)

We are now halfway through our holiday, so time for some fitness statistics - in the past 17 days, which includes two days of flying, we have walked an average of 15.2 km per day with an elevation gain of 520 ft., which means that we have walked 258 km and climbed 8,770 ft.  Not bad for the two sedentary males in the group (an everyday occurrence for our wives). 

Today was the day to hit all of the tourist spots, and we gave equal opportunity to the most important Catholic, Muslim and Jewish buildings in the old town, between rain showers.

First off was Synagogue of El Transito (The Sephardic Museum), which we found underwhelming.  The displays all carried Spanish titles and descriptions, with no English, there were no English audio guides available (don't believe everything you read in the travel guides....Rick Steves you are the guilty party here), the web accessible commentary was so general as to not be worth listening to (perhaps it will get better over time), and even the little book that we bought when we entered was not much help.  But hey, what should we expect for free?  We did learn that the Jews were evicted from Spain in 1492 (perhaps Christopher Columbus was Jewish?), and they were the original Sephardic Jews, but that was about all we learned.

The main room of the synagogue

After a coffee we parted company with Randy and Marty, who went to see the El Greco exhibit at the Santa Cruz Museum.  Marlene and I headed to the Mosque of Christo de la Luz, a 1000 year old mosque, which later became a Christian church with the addition of an apse, has been the scene of much archeological focus in recent years, and where they found an earlier mosque and a Roman road below the current building.  The mosque was only about 20 feet square, but more than doubled in size with the addition of the apse.  Of most interest was the archeological work and the Arabic architecture.

The arches of the mosque

The mosque (right) with apse attached (on left) with excavated Roman road in front below ground level

Being over the road from the restaurant that we ate dinner at two nights ago, we stopped by for lunch of eggplant, hummus, couscous and chicken kebabs.  We are becoming regulars.

By the time we had finished lunch, the Cathedral, which is touted as the best in Spain, was open, so off we went (along with a few thousand others).  The Cathedral is certainly impressive inside, and has a good collection of works by El Greco, but the audio guide did not talk about the side altars, so overall the experience was not as good as Burgos Cathedral, although the cathedral itself was probably more impressive. 

The main altar

An El Greco painting on display in the cathedral

I did however see a great pair of knockers on the side door of the cathedral - similar to yesterday's winning pair, but I am sure that no two pairs are identical. 

We did not bother with the Alcazar as it had been wrecked during the civil war and has since been restored, so more reproductions and modern construction.  I think that we are probably now done with cathedrals and alcazars, unless there is something really unique about them or we have a really rainy day. 

We did see one other old master in the street, artist unknown. Does it look like anyone you know?

Then it was back to the hotel, do some laundry, and relax a little, far from the madding crowd. 

The Spanish pronounce "th" as th, they pronounce "z" as th, and they pronounce "c" as th when accompanied by certain vowels. Thid from Barthalona sneethed. It's like they all have a lisp!

We weren't overly hungry, but knew that we had to get something as an evening meal, so we set off about 7 pm looking for a supermarket, but being Sunday they were all closed.  We walked closer to the old town and it started raining.  Marlene asked how close we were to a cafe that I ate scrambled eggs in yesterday morning, and as we were only 5 minutes away, we climbed back up into the old town and shared a hot chicken sandwich and sipped on a tea.  

With the rain stopped, we set off looking for the indoor market where we had bought diced fruit on our first day in Toledo and had not been able to find again since. After several false starts we eventually found it and marked it on our map for future reference. The market was a really bustling place, and we discovered that it actually has 5 floors, with lots of cafes / restaurants.  Maybe we will be back again tomorrow when we are hungry.

By the time we got back to the hotel it was 9:30 pm, so a good point at which to end the day, after walking 18 km and climbing 1060 feet....not quite a record, but good for an honourable mention. 

To all our Canadian family and friends "Happy Thanksgiving" for tomorrow. May your turkey be large and your pumpkin pie even larger.