May 1 - 2, 2010 -- Holy Toledo!

We picked up a rental car at the Madrid airport and travelled through Castilla-La Mancha to Toledo, the capital city, ecclesiastically and politically, for hundreds of years. Toledo was also considered the most holy of cities by the indigenous Sepharic Jews, who were expelled during the reformation but brought memories of their home to America, hence the term "Holy Toledo."

Toledo is a very attractive city but because of that, it is quite over-run by tourists. Still, we had great fun walking the city and observing its people.

At the San Juan des los Reyes Monas- tery wedding guests were gathering at the main entrance and we took photos of the musicians and performers waiting at the front entrance for the wedding party to arrive. We toured the monastery which featured a typical lovely courtyard surrounded by Gothic arched walkways.

Toledo was enjoying a festival and the university students were performing at the large Plaza Zocodover, satirizing the crucifixion by singing and playing loud music, bouncing a ball around and featuring a "fat lady" bearing the cross.

We had a reservation for dinner and while we tried to change it to an earlier time, the restaurant didn't open until 8:00 p.m. so we had tapas in the lower level bar before walking home down steep, cobblestone streets to the city gates, and then another 15 minute walk to the hotel.

On May 2nd we again explored Toledo, but not before having our first and only Spanish breakfast of churros, deep fried pastry, -- a favourite of the locals who dunk them in their coffee.

We were determined to see some works of El Greco (The Greek), Toledo's most famous adopted artist. We first saw his work displayed extensively in the Santa Cruz Museum just off the Plaza Zocodover. His portraits stand in real contrast to others exhibited there, for his deep vibrant colours, angular faces with particularly long noses, and his subjects' lack of the conventional look of piety (at least they are not all looking upwards with adoring eyes). Paradoxically, most of his work was commissioned by the Catholic Church.

After leaving the museum we enjoyed beer and paella in a little square, and Carol then had a snuggle with another local hero, Cervantes.

One of the highlights of the day was a ride on a local bus which took us through the historic and outlying areas of Toledo where we had spectacular views of the walled city.

In one plaza we were delighted by a little girl who was dressed in her Sunday best, a flamenco outfit. When her parents asked her to pose for us she looked indignant, with arms akimbo, but later smiled.

Finally, we visited a synagogue, a physical reminder of the large, vibrant Jewish community that lived in Toledo before the counter-reformation and inquisition, during which a third of the Jewish population was killed, another third expelled, and a third "voluntarily" converted to Catholicism. The name of the Synagoga de Santa Maria indicates how this particular building survived, by renaming it after the Virgin Mary with its parishioners becoming more Catholic than the Pope. It is a beautiful little building, hosting a showing of the work of an Israeli artist, himself a convert to Catholicism in Spain, with a theme of building a bridge between Spain and Israel. Now there is an historic relationship that needs some mending.

We left the historic city via the series of escalators which we hadn't used before. Hmmm, should have known about these before we hiked up the steep, and long, cobblestone streets.