Holy Toledo It's Cold!

There are several day trips that can be done from Madrid.  The efficient bus and train systems allow tourists to travel to some of the neighboring towns without having to rent a vehicle.  The Wife was able to research all of the transportation options months previously on the Internet.  She had purchased all of our tickets for our excursions way in advance.  The train station was a short 15 minute walk from our apartment.  Because it was still early morning, we were freezing while we walked.  The cold wouldn't get much better throughout the day.

We took a 33 minute train ride to the neighboring town of Toledo, the capital of region known as Castille-La Mancha.  It's a very historic region of Spain known for its castles that dominated the land and the battles fought between the Christian Crusaders and the invading Moors.  But it is probably most famous for its favorite son Miguel de Cervantes and his novel Don Quixote.

Toledo was first settled by the Celts in ancient times.  The Romans soon conquered the area, and the city grew and prospered under their rule.  After the fall of the Western Empire, Toledo continued to grow and eventually became the capital of the Visigoth Empire.  Christianity flourished in their kingdom.  But the Visigoth reign was short-lived.  Fractions within their empire allowed the invading Arab and Berber troops to take over, thus establishing the Taifa Kingdom of Toledo.  Under Arab rule, the city maintained its importance, but it was beset by multiple revolts and battles as the divided kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula waged continuous war with each other.  Eventually, in 1085 King Alfonso VI reclaimed Toledo in the long campaign for the reconquest of the continent by Christian forces.

We arrived at the Toledo train station which was a long distance from the center of town.  We could walk it, but it would be all uphill.  Instead, we caught a nearby bus which took us all the way up to the central, touristy part of town.

The train station was ornately decorated with colorful stain glass windows.

From the center of town, we had a short hike through winding streets to reach the Catedral Primada (Primate Cathedral of Toledo).  Although it is only the 2nd largest cathedral in Spain, it is consider the most important as Toledo was historically the spiritual center of Spanish Catholicism.  The main construction of this Gothic-style building dates from 1226 to 1493.  Smaller additions were made over the years with the last dating to the 17th century.

Toledo is laid out like an old medieval
 city with narrow, cobblestone streets.

Historically, Toledo was well-known for the production of superior quality swords...and Thor's hammer.  

Included in our entrance fee tickets was a self-guided audio tour.  The narrator divulged a wealth of information about the cathedral including the specifics of the altars and artwork housed inside.  At least I presume he did.  After listening to the first two items of interest, none of us had the patience to continue at the guide's slow pace.  Unfortunately, there was no Cliffs Notes version.  So we just explored the rest of the cathedral on our own.  We likely missed some life-changing information contained within the audio guide, but we had a schedule to keep.

The Portal of the lions

One of the most striking walls that is seen immediately when entering the cathedral is a 35 foot painting of St. Christopher.  The legend claims that he was a giant of a man who sought to serve the greatest king of the land.  After finding several false "great kings," he came upon the word of Jesus Christ.  A spiritual man told him that he could best serve Christ by helping weary travelers cross a dangerous river.  So he did this for a long period of time.  One day, he was approached by a small child who sought his help getting to the other side of the river.  During the crossing, the child grew heavier and heavier, to the point where Christopher could barely carry him further and risking their lives in the dangerous currents.  When they finally reached the other bank, the child explained to the perplexed Christopher that he was Jesus Christ.  The reason that this small child was so heavy is that he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders.  And thus, Saint Christopher which means "Christ-bearer" became the patron saint of travelers.

The Chapterhouse is adorned with paintings of former archbishops.

I'm pretty sure the guy in the middle had narcolepsy.

Adjacent to the main chapel is the Sacristy where many of the cathedral's artwork and treasures are on display.  These include a beautiful ceiling fresco by Luca Giordano and the eye-popping El Expolio painting by El Greco, who lived in the city during his later years.  Other galleries contained centuries-old, hand-decorated Bibles and ornate Catholic relics, including the Monstrance of Arfe which is used in the procession of Corpus Christi.

The Toledo Cathedral was impressive and beautiful, but it still reminded me of the other famous churches that I had seen previously in France years ago.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to understanding the rituals of Catholicism.  All I know is that Catholics imbibe a lot of alcohol, live in constant guilt, and have priests that molest altar boys.  Therefore, some of the details and history that make the Toledo Cathedral so special were wasted on me.

With its long history of warfare, it's no surprise that one of the major tourist attractions in Toledo is the Alcazar.  The area originally served as a palace during the late Roman period.  A thousand years later, a large medieval fortress was erected on that spot.  In the last 500 years it has been modified further, functioning as a royal castle for the Holy Roman Empire, a prison, and even the national military academy.  During the early stages of the Spanish Civil War, the Alcazar was the site of a huge propaganda win for Franco's Nationalist uprising as their poorly-equipped garrison held off a siege from the Republican army.  Nowadays, the Alcazar serves as the Army Museum, depicting Spain's long military history.

The Alcazar was built on the highest hill so that it looks down on the city.

Some of the original walls of the Alcazar can be seen in the museum.

A Schneider mountain gun used during the Rif War between Spain and Berber tribes in the 1920's.  This 
would be one of many conflicts addressed at the museum that only Spanish people would be familiar with.

The bullet-ridden car that former Prime
Minister Eduardo Dato was riding in when
assassinated by Catalan anarchists in 1921.

A depiction of Visigoth cavalry

Atahaulpa's Revenge: A scrap of
Francisco Pizzaro's shirt...

...worn when he was assassinated in Lima in 1541.

The Wife made some new dapper friends at the Alcazar.

A random Spanish military helicopter was parked on an outside balcony. 
From that vantage point, there is a great view of the city below.

These 24 pound cannons were mounted on warships or fortifications.

With a huge crack in the barrel, it's best not to fire this cannon.

A carriage with a swiveled amusette gun

Multi-barreled or volley guns were created to increase the rate of fire.  Some had five barrels...

Others had as many as 20.  Eventually
rotating Gatling-style designs won out.

Armor and melee weapons used by Vietnamese soldiers
during the 19th century Spanish-Cochin China conflict.

Various machine guns used during the 20th century.  Many were
produced  by Spain's neighbors like France and Germany.

This heavily-engraved Bergmann-Bayard pistol was used by the Spanish army in the early 20th century.

Normally, I'm a big military history buff, and a museum like this would have been orgasmic.  However, even I was pretty bored with the Alcazar.  The displays were well done and informative, but the museum overall was sterile and repetitive.  Additionally, I really had little knowledge or interest in all the obscure conflicts that Spain went through over the last 500 years.  Likely a Spaniard would be able to appreciate the museum much more.

As bored as I was, The Wife was absolutely miserable the whole time we were at the Alcazar.  She was expecting to see more of the historic fortress and not just a military museum.  Fortunately, the main town square was only a short distance's walk away.

The Confiteria Santo Tome is one of
the most well-known shops in Toledo.

The store is famous for their marzipan treats.

This marzipan reproduction of the Toledo
Cathedral shows their exquisite craftsmanship.

During the holiday season, people would travel to Toledo just to purchase their
marzipan for gifts.  Unfortunately, this caused the shop to be extremely busy.

An assortment of marzipan with and without nuts.

An intricately-decorated marzipan that is great for gifts.

For lunch we walked a block away to El Trebol, a busy restaurant tucked away in a nearby alley.  Although not overtly touristy, it was still tourist-friendly for us non-Spanish speakers.  Since we didn't want to spend all day translating the menu, we ordered a couple of platters of assorted foods in addition to a few small dishes.  One of the platters provided us with a tasting of some of the foods popular in this region.  It included slices of Manchego cheese, probably the most well-known food from this region and migas manchegas--crumbs of Manchego cheese mixed with apple and quince.  There was also partridge pate and carcamusas, a stewed pork and vegetable served in an earthenware pot.  The food was good even though we really didn't know exactly what dishes we were eating at the time.

Platter of grilled meats

Bombas trebol (mashed potato balls stuffed with meat and peppers)

Prawn croquette

An assortment of tapas with specialties of this region.

Visitors exploring Toledo will eventually encounter monuments celebrating its favorite son, Miguel de Cervantes.  He is best known as the author of the famous novel Don Quixote.  I've never read the book, seen the play, nor seen any of the movies.

We were worn out from our visits to the Cathedral and Alcatraz, so we decided to make our way back to Madrid.  Instead of taking the bus back to the train station, we decided to walk back as the sun had warmed up the afternoon air and it was all downhill.  We crossed the Tagus River on the Alcantara Bridge.  This structure was completed by the Romans in 106 AD and rebuilt and restored over the next two millennia.  The views of the city of Toledo and the Tagus River are beautiful from atop of the bridge.  

When we reached the train station, we realized that all of our careful planning had backfired against us.  We had purchased train tickets months in advance for a late afternoon return to Madrid.  There were earlier trains with seats available, but it costed us much more to switch those tickets.  Still it beat waiting in the train station for two extra hours.

Back in Madrid, we took a detour along the Gran Via, admiring the Art Deco architecture of several of the buildings.  

For dinner that night, we had reservations at Restaurant Botin, one of Spain's most famous eateries.  It has the distinction of being the oldest restaurant in the WORLD.  Their certificate from the Guinness Book of Records was prominently displayed.  Botin is also notable because it was mentioned in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises:"We lunched upstairs at Botin's.  It is one of the best restaurants in the world.  We had roast young suckling pig and drank rioja alta."

However, the reviews for Botin on Yelp were not exactly glowing.  However, my mother had come there years ago and she raved about it.  Plus, it was only a ten minute walk from our apartment.  Therefore, I figured we should give it a try.

We were seated on the second floor, packed in tightly at a table in the back corner of the restaurant.  To make it worse, the heater was on full blast making the restaurant really stuffy despite the cold winter's night.  Several of us ordered the roast suckling pig or the roast lamb, dishes that Botin is most known for.  Since she is not much of a carnivore, The Wife ordered the baby squid with ink sauce and rice. 

My starter course of garlic soup with egg was good, but nothing special.  The entrees were just average.  The skin on the suckling pork was indeed crispy, but the flavor and meager amount of meat was not very good.  That in itself was very disappointing, because I had hoped for a much more transcendent experience at such an expensive and renowned restaurant.  The ambiance was simply annoying.  The place was packed, so the waiters were often too busy with multiple tables to render excellent service.  It was very difficult trying to cut our pork and lamb when we had no room to move our elbows.  It was hard to enjoy the food because I was sweating so profusely from the heat.  Despite it being the most expensive meal that we would eat in Spain, it was one of our worst.  Longevity aside, there is sadly nothing special about Botin.

The dining room before it got too crowded.

Bread is not complimentary--diners are charged for it.

Salad Botin

Garlic soup with egg

Baby squids in their own ink with rice

Roast suckling pig

Roast lamb

We all felt that the disappointing dinner at Botin was a fitting ending to an underwhelming day.  However, it wasn't quite over for The Wife and I yet.  Back in our apartment we were kept up all night by a group of loud college-aged Americans who were residing in the adjacent, upper floor apartment.  There was absolutely no sound insulation in our room, so we could hear every single noise they made.  We heard the crappy music from their radio, their inane conversations, and the incessant slamming of their doors.  We even heard the college-aged American female who showed up at their apartment all alone at midnight.  From their conversations, we could tell that she had just met them earlier that day.  I prayed that this foolish girl was really unattractive lest she get assaulted by these relative strangers.  Fortunately, nothing happened and finally at 2 AM in the morning, the entire apartment cleared out as these boisterous Americans hit the town to party.