Sunday, 18 May

After breakfast, Dolora and I were off to Toledo for the day. We took the Metro from in front of the hotel to the train station, Madrid Atocha. The Madrid Metro works the same as the DC metro. Find your line color with the correct endpoint and hop on. Four stops later we were at the train station. The train station has two “terminals”, one for the AVE or high speed trains and one for the regular trains. The train to Toledo is another AVE. After a little confusion we were through security and waiting to find which platform our train would use. The waiting area was really crowded and the 8:05 Toledo train did not leave until after 9:30 so we were a little concerned but our 10:15 train left on time. The train hit speeds of 250 km/hr or 150 miles per hour on the half hour trip.

We arrived at the Toledo train station and were unsuccessful in finding a taxi. The taxi ride would have offered a stop to take some photos of Toledo from the other side of the river. Toledo is surrounded by the river on three sides and only needed one wall to fortify the town. Toledo was also the capital of Spain before moving the capital to Madrid. We spent the morning exploring the town and tasting sweets made by nuns to raise funds, marzipan and cookies. Another marzipan store had a nine foot tall marzipan sculpture of Don Quixote which is listed in the Guinness book of world records.

After visiting a park with views across the river, we say Nino Longobardi’s sculpture of Christ, Jesus with a hula hoop? The sculpture’s iconography refers to the circle, which symbolizes the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to save us and grant us eternal life. The dead Jesus Christ is the motionless axis of the rotation of the cycle of becoming. I had to look this up when we got back. The statue is a little unusual without this understanding.

Then it was back towards the center of town for a late lunch at Plácido Restaurante followed by a tour of the Toledo Cathedral. The cathedral is built on the site of a Christian Visigoth church, which was turned into a Muslim mosque, and back to a catholic church. The cathedral is enormous and has unusual dimensions. It is very wide since it was built over the mosque. I do have to say after seeing Gaudi’s work in Barcelona, the cathedral was beautiful but it is just like every other church.

A stop for gelato before going to the train station for our return. Back to the hotel for a quick stop before a late dinner at Puerto Rico Restaurante. More Madrid tomorrow.