Toledo

A pitcuresque view of the Río Tajo and the original city limits of Toledo

 Our time in Madrid passed quickly, and before I knew it we were hauling our luggage out to the curb, hopping on a bus, and heading out of the city.  Then, within minutes, what once was sky scrapers and boulevards became rolling hills and olive trees.  Time passed quickly, but when we got to our next destination, Toledo, it seemed like in one hour we had traveled back hundreds of years.  Coming into the city I immediately felt myself being mystified by the sun-bleached white and tan brick houses with terra cotta roof tops packed closely together along narrow winding streets under the shadows of the Alcazár, the Catedral, the Monasterio San Juan de los Reyes.  To me, this city epitomizes the classic image of medieval Spain, and I was certainly swept away by my imagination as we meandered through its cobblestone streets and looked in the windows of shops selling traditional swords and gold jewelery. 

We met with a tour guide who took us around the city, commenting on how Toledo is often referred to as the "city of tolerance" because throughout the years before the Spanish Inquisition it was home to Christians,  Jews and Muslims alike and all lived peacefully together on this ancient hill, "embraced" (as our guide liked to say) and therefore protected by the river, Tajo.

Our first stop in the city was at the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes where we admired how every detail in the walls, the ceiling and even the gardens had a specific meaning (for example, the lush garden in the center of the monastery, which was supposed to represent the image of femininity was constantly kept behind a locked gate....)  In the passageways above the gardens, the ceilings were made of layered wood designs that were intricately cut and placed so as to not require a single nail (this one's for you, dad) and within these designs were the painted symbols to represent Isabel and Ferdinand, for whom the saying goes (which was also painted throughout the building), "Tanto monta, monta tanto, Isabel como Fernando" which ultimately translates to the equality in power shared by this king and queen of Spain in one of the country's most unforgettable eras. 

Our next stop was at the national monument, Santa Maria la Blanca.  In its prime Toledo was graced by twelve synagogues, but during the era of the Inquisition all but two of these synagogues were destroyed, and those two that remained only did so by being converted into churches.  The Jewish community had to display themselves like their houses of worship, with the true splendor of their faith remaining on the inside, no matter what appeared on the outside.  With this in mind, our group entered the converted synagogue which appeared quite plain from the outside to not only an obviously more lavish interior, but also a very strange design of columns separating the room into five sections...like that of a mosque.  As it turns out, when this synagogue was built, the Jewish leader in charge had recently returned from the middle east where he had been acting as an ambassador for the Spain, and with him he brought back builders to build him a synagogue in the middle eastern he so admired...which just so happened to be the style of the Muslim mosques.  And so there we were, in 2010, standing in a Christian-converted, Jewish synagogue built in traditional Muslim style.  Hooray for Toledo!

The rest of our tour involved more meandering through the hot stone and brick streets as we visited the
the burial place of the Conde de Orgaz (the Count of Orgaz) whose painting of his death by the famous, El Greco, hangs above his grave (so honored because in his will he required that the people of his pueblo pay an incredibly unreasonable amount of their crops and livestock to the local church every fall - a law that lasted over two hundred years!).  It was also exciting for Brittany and I to be here because we remembered this building and the street it is on from the movie, "Te doy mis ojos" (I Give you My Eyes), which we watched in our spanish films class last spring.

The rest of the early afternoon was spent freely walking around the city and searching for marzipan desserts, which are a specialty of Toledo.  After lunch in town, we unfortunately had to head back to our buses to ride out to our hotel which was some ten minutes from the original part of Toledo.  One of the few disadvantages about studying abroad with ISA is that there are just so many of us, so getting a hotel for 46 people requires going to the newer, larger hotels on the outskirts of the city.  However, the hotel made up for the distance by providing a large outdoor pool and rooms with a breathtaking view of Toledo's skyline on the hillside.

By this time, however, I have to admit my mind was already losing focus on this beautiful city as I began to think about the coming day when we would arrive in Granada, meet our host families, and begin settling into a city that would be our home for the next three and a half months....