Holy Toledo!

Today we left Madrid on a high speed train bound for Toledo!

Toledo is the former capital of Spain, where Isabel and Ferdinand defeated the Muslims to make one united Spain. It´s a walled city full of tiny alleyways, twisted streets, and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of hills!

We headed first to the Cathedral.

Now, we´ve seen a lot of them and this one definitely makes the top 10. Much better than the Case Ole Cathedral in Madrid. The cathedral in Toledo was awesome, full of intricately carved pieces of gold and alabaster. When one artist created an altarpiece, he decided it was too dark inside, so he just punched a hole in the ceiling. Now this made the cardinals slightly peeved, so he had to create another gigantic piece of art to cover up his oops. The weirdest thing is that when a cardinal dies, he gets to pick where he wants to be buried in the church and then his special red cardinal hat is hung from the roof over that point until it rots and falls off. There were two crusty hats on display. Eww... how long have those guys been dead?

Toledo is actually known for it´s Marzipan, you know, the cute little fruit shaped things that no one knows what they taste like. Well now we do, Blake had naranja and I had fresa, and we ate them in the Plaza Zocodover, the central hub of the city. (By the way, they´re almondy with jelly goo inside.) Yum! Although, as we learned later, purists of the dessert do NOT eat marzipan with any filling what-so-ever! Their loss is our gain!

Next, we decided on Rick Steve´s advice, to take this cheesy ¨train¨ around the city. More like a series of boxes on wheels attached to a diesel powered truck. Since Toledo is bound on three sides by a river and is High up on a hill, the train takes you outside the city walls to get the gorgeous view of Toledo from the river banks. Good views of the Alcazar and one of the entrances to the city. STOP LOOKING AT THE BIRD ON THE LEFT! IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TOLEDO!

Yeah, old Rick forgot to mention that it shakes the crap out of you before it gets there. Old cheesy train + smoking driver who doesn´t give a crap and goes way too fast + cobblestone + 50 minutes = throw up marzipan. Seriously, the view was great but let´s just say that pregnancy makes certain parts grow, and those parts do not take nicely to being shook violently for 50 minutes!

After we got off and kissed the ground, we took a little time to wander the streets and alleyways, shopped a little, found El Greco´s greatest masterpiece in a tiny church, St. Tome, and wandered over to see the Alcazar, the GIANT fort sitting on top of the city. A little picture from the top of the city walls. Behind us, left of Blake´s head, the castle from El Cid.

We also must confess that after all this walking (which we SWEAR somehow really is uphill both ways) we were starving, and we´re reaching our ham limit. So we did something I swore we wouldn´t do and ate McDonald´s. They promised it was Authenico Americana. Right... even if you´re staring at something beautiful and eating it, it´s still slightly gross. At least the McDonald´s in the city square where we ate is controversial. That made us feel better about it. The locals protested its arrival for quite some time so when it finally came the city limited Mickey D´s to one arch for advertising. McDonald´s is persistent! Luckily it made the picture! Here´s us under ¨the golden arch (single)¨.

Holding our heads in shame, we headed back to the train station for the quick trip to Madrid. We´ve wandered around a little more tonight, taking in the big shopping district, el Gran Via. Madrid has so many cute stores. All Zara like and affordable! Laura, you would be in heaven! But, we learned if going out for a stroll, do not try it during Spanish ¨walking¨ rush hour (after work, going to eat-DRINK, going to shop). Remember, we´re talking 8:30 p.m. here!!!

We´re off now for our last churros and chocolate (we SWEAR we didn´t eat them yesterday) and then packing up to head off to Granada and the Alhambra.