January 30

1-30
Hi all! We just got back from Toledo. It is a beautiful city! It’s quite a bit smaller than Madrid, so it had more of that small town feel, and the streets were tiny. I swear some of them were less than 10 feet wide! It looked like a wide sidewalk, but there were cars and all the pedestrians had to plaster themselves to the wall in order to avoid getting hit. In the morning we went to La Catedral de Toledo, which is the Cathedral of Toledo. It was the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen! They wouldn’t allow any photos, which really is a shame, but in a way it was good because then I could concentrate on just drinking it all in instead of taking pictures. They gave us a brochure that has some pictures on it, so I took pictures of the pictures so you can see it. They’re not very good quality, but at least it’s something. It was huge, and almost every inch of the walls was carved or painted or gilded. There was a tour in English that we heard a little bit of and I think he said the main sanctuary area was five stories tall. On the sides were those little hollows with the statues and paintings, and there were effigies of cardinals and archbishops. They had a display of a bunch of the ornate golden jewelry that the bishops wore, and gilded crosses, and those things that swing the incense around (you can tell I’m not Catholic). They even had General Franco’s sword. I’m not sure how that got to be in a church, but it was there. The pillars inside the church were huge, and all made from stone. The floors were all marble. All of the ceilings were gilded or painted too. In the sacristy were a bunch of original paintings by El Greco and other famous painters I can’t remember right now. It was amazing to see them in person. There were also portraits of all the archbishops since medieval times. My absolute favorite part of the cathedral was the display of the archbishops’ vestments. The oldest one I saw was from the 14th century!! They were all elaborately embroidered, and I was trying to see on each one how the designs were sewn. Some of them even had pictures of biblical scenes, like a panel of tapestry in the front of the robe or, in one case, the entirety of the cape. They were fantastic to look at. I don’t know if everyone knows this, but medieval and Renaissance clothing is a huge interest of mine. To see garments from that era in person was surreal. I spent so long in that room that everyone else was done with the cathedral and waiting for me. Oh well, that’s just too bad; I wasn’t going to rush my chance for such an incredible experience.
After that we went to a little store where they made all sorts of things with this special technique; I don’t know what it’s called. I think it’s made on iron with 24 carat gold and silver thread pounded into an intricate design. Then it’s burned and the iron turns black and the gold and silver stay their same color, so the result is a dramatic contrast between background and pattern. Apparently there are only 12 people that make these things by hand, I think in the world. They do this on earrings, pins, plates, pictures, anything that can be decorative. There was even a picture of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza made from this in the store. It’s really beautiful. The man that makes it for the store was there working, so we could see how he did it. He had a piece of gold thread that he pushed into the iron with an awl-type thing. He worked really fast and it looked easy, but it isn’t. The store owner said it takes two days of 9 solid hours of work each just to make one 1-inch necklace pendant. I can’t even imagine how long it takes to make some of those plates or pictures! It was very cool.
We also went to the Museo Sefardi, which is a museum of all things Sefardic (the Jews that lived in Spain before they were kicked out). I can’t remember if this was just the first time in 711 or if there was also stuff from the Reconquista in 1492 under los Reyes Católicos Isabel and Fernando. It was in a synagogue, which was beautiful. There were artifacts like bits of pottery and tablets with Hebrew writing. There was a lot of gold jewelry and ancient books with beautifully painted pictures. There were some clothes there too, women’s and men’s formal religious garments, I think. Gorgeous! It was a small but interesting museum.
Toledo is where they make a lot of swords and things like that. Toledo means rapier in Spanish. So all of the little shops sold swords. There full size ones and daggers, and little letter-opener sized swords. I actually saw one of the daggers that I have hanging in my room at home at one of the stores. It was really cool, because at one store in the middle of the sword rack was a replica of King Theoden’s sword from Lord of the Rings! There was another store with a whole window display of LOTR stuff, like Sauron’s helmet, his gauntlet with the One Ring, a foot high statue of Legolas, the Evenstar, and little metal figurines of all the characters. It made me happy! J
Toledo only about a 50 minute bus ride from Madrid, so I think some of my friends and I are going to go back some weekend. It really was a fantastic trip! Now I’m really tired and I think I’m going to go to bed early.
G’night!
Bethany