Blogging Through Spain (Part 2 of 3): Holy Toledo!

You've reached the middle part of my retrospective blog diary of my 8 days in Spain. You can read about days one through three, in Madrid, here:

http://www.andrewsmithsthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/09/blogging-through-spain-part-1-of-3.html 

(I would post a link to part 3 as well, but I haven't written it yet.)

On day 4, we woke up early to catch a train from Madrid to Toledo. But not early enough.

Day 4:
We're taking a day trip to Toledo. It's a 30-minute ride and it's the city where the expression "Holy Toledo" originated. As we leave our apartment, that's about all I know of our destination, except that Toledo is holy.

We had decided to come here because, prior to its present incarnation as the spiritual center of Catholic Spain, the city was previously ruled by the Islamic Moors and also had a huge Jewish presence.  Because of the three cultures that have influenced it, it's filled with buildings that have alternatively been mosques, synagogues and cathedrals.

As we sleepily wobble out our apartment at the break of dawn to catch our train, I'm already regretting the trip. I'm enjoying Madrid so much.  I'd rather just sleep in and eat more tapas and olives and leave the religious diversity and cultural encounters for some other day, when I'm not so tired.

The situation isn't helped by the fact that we miss our train. Our apartment guide claimed we were a 20-minute walk from the train station. About 25 minutes into our walk, we begin to freak out. We should have been there by now.  We gave ourselves 35 minutes, but it still wasn't enough.

We ran the last stretch of the way, but it still took every minute of the 35 just to get inside the door of the station. It took another 15 to figure out where in the multi-level train station we needed to go once we got there.

By then, our train was long gone.

Thankfully, there was another one a hour and a half later. We had hoped we could use the same ticket for the next one, but, as with every other transaction, I would have to ask in Spanish.

The answer was clearly "no," although I couldn't decipher the specific details. I was then directed to another window ("apunte" from the customer service desk) where I could buy new tickets.

After an extra hour's wait, we boarded for Toledo. When we arrived at Toledo's beautiful Moroccan-style train station, we couldn't even see the city, so we decided to take the $2 bus into downtown.

It would be the best decision we made all week.

The large, overfilled bus whizzed uphill through the winding mountain road, coming inches away from colliding with both passing traffic and hanging cliffs, taking turns to ensure that its passengers on each side were equally terrified. But the alternative would have been to walk up the functional equivalent of the stairway to Heaven.

Or the stairway to Holy Toledo.

Toldeo is at the peak of a mountain, overlooking a river and valley on all sides. The city isn't really a city in the normal meaning of the term. Instead, it's an old medieval fortress that thousands of modern people happen to live and work in. There's a river at the base of the mountain that serves as a natural moat.

The "streets" are winding cobblestone walkways that appear to have been unchanged for 600 years. There isn't enough room for cars and people to coincide, so when a car comes by, pedestrians must cling to the fortress walls and pray for their lives to allow room for the car to pass. Thankfully, the city is reputed to be holy because of the numerous houses of worship it contains, so the pedestrians prayers are generally answered.

Aside from the occasional passing car, it looks like we've traveled back in time to before the Renaissance.  It's brutally hot and the winding medieval alleyways ("streets" are too strong of a word to describe them) are impossible to navigate or even map, but it's still impossible not to love Toledo. It's hard to imagine something like this still exists.

I stand in awe. I've never seen anything like this.

"Holy Toledo," is all I can think to say.

We are in a living castle, right down to the moat surrounding us on all sides. I keep looking up at the fortress towers, expecting to see a princess, or a dragon, or perhaps a dragon princess. The noise from the occasional second-floor tv destroys the illusion, but somehow increases the surreal nature of the vibe.

We wander to a couple of former synagogues that look like mosques, but are now cathedrals.  The Moorish architecture on the inside and outside of the buildings looks like a scene from Casablanca. I had always wanted to see Morocco, but I can't imagine this isn't the same thing, only prettier and with a language barrier more easily navigated.

Holy Toledo.

The Islamic African Moors controlled this area for 700 years. When they were finally driven out of control in the 1400s, their architects stayed over, because the pre-Renaissance Europeans couldn't build things this pretty. As a result, even the cathedrals and synagogues built inside the old fortress in look like Mosques. Toledo has eight or nine of these, all beautiful, and they all look straight out of Arabian Nights.

It's hard to imagine how a fort/town this small every supported so many houses of worship. But that's why the city is considered so holy.

After visiting the two synagogues, we go inside a monastery. It was beautiful like everything else in Toledo, but what I remember most is that it had an orange tree in the courtyard. The courtyard was blocked off to prevent people like me from stealing oranges. This made me mad because it seemed like a religious institution like this should have been on the honor system. And more importantly, the fence kept me from stealing a fresh Spanish orange that I'd been dreaming about for months.

We grabbed lunch in a break between architectural wonders. Predictably, the waiter/owner/manager who ran the little shop we ducked into spoke very little English. We did just fine, at least until the clueless New Yorkers wandered in just behind us.

When they struggled to order, I tried to fill in the gaps from the table next over.  The waiter had recommended three specific dishes, but they wanted more details, despite the fact that neither had a clue how to communicate.

Somewhere along the way, they heard the word "tomate," which they recognized to mean tomato.

"Oh, so is that like spaghetti?" one of them yelled to me, sitting at the next table over.

I struggled to find a way to answer their question in a way that both the waiter and these clueless customers would understand. It didn't help that I hadn't even heard what dish they were talking about, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be spaghetti. This was Spain, after all not Italy.

After they finally clumsily and painfully ordered an appetizer ("chicken") using English entirely, I introduced myself.

I offered to help, telling them (in English) that while I wasn't fluent in Spanish, I knew enough to communicate.

"Oh, we do to," they said.  And then they began asking each other if either knew the Spanish word for "chicken."

They didn't.

In fact, the two of them knew a grand total of six words between them, and that's only if you double-counted the three words they both seemed to know. That would have been fine, had we not gotten dragged unwillingly into their constant attempts to grab the waiter's attention ask obscure, inane questions.

We ate a fantastic meal and left, interrupted occasionally by our waiter's requests to translate the bizarre requests of the tourists beside us.

No, the restaurant doesn't have "ranch" salad dressing.
Yes, the papas bravas are "kind of" like French fries, but why did you come here if you want to eat French fries?
No, they don't have hamburgers.
"Carne" means meat. "Calamari" means "calamari."
Yes, I can translate the word for "bathroom" but why did you come here without even knowing that?

And why couldn't you have at least asked me these questions beforehand, instead of forcing the waiter to turn to me when he showed up and couldn't answer your questions in English?

Two hours after we left, we happened to wander by the restaurant on our way to catch a taxi out of town. Our "friends" were just leaving the restaurant. I can only imagine what happened in the meantime, but they looked pleasantly clueless, oblivious to the fact that they'd probably just erased 5 years of the restaurant owner's life.  It was an 8 hour flight to get here. Couldn't you have opened a phrasebook for half an hour of that?

And I just knew from the way the carried themselves that if they ever met a tourist in America would was equally unprepared, they would turn up their noses.

No wonder so many people hate Americans.

After lunch, we see an old mosque that had been converted into a church, and an old church that had been converted to a museum. It was somehow even more beautiful than everything else we had seen.

There are other sites to see, most of them religious, but after the six of them we've seen, we've reached the point of diminishing returns. It's time to move on.

We catch a taxi across the bridge to the hotel on another mountain across the river.  It overlooks the city, so we sit under a tent on the patio and have drinks (and olives) while we absorb the last bit of this crazy place. I still can't believe it actually exists, why they let cars drive on the medieval roads, or why anyone chooses to live in this old fortress. It's magical, but it can't make for an easy life.

But I'm glad they do.

I wasn't excited to come here, but it's the most astounding thing I've ever seen. Three cultures live in one city.  Which is a 15th Century fortress. On the top of mountain surrounded by a moat, and blossoming with orange trees that the monastery won't let me steal.

Holy Toledo.

If you ever get a chance, you have to see this place. It was my favorite day of the whole trip, even with our obnoxious entitled friends from New York who drove both us and our waiter crazy.

We take a taxi to the train station, which itself looks like an Arabian Palace, where Liz takes a final round of pictures, and we board the train to head back to Madrid.

After another wonderful round of showers, we head back out into the Madrilleno night, but we're hot and tired and we've already been to the restaurants that look the best, so we head back a little earlier than the night before.

"What did you think of our day?" I ask.
"It was wonderful," Liz says. "What were your thoughts?"
I pause.  Only one phrase comes to mind.

"Holy Toledo."

We reluctantly go to bed again around midnight, sad at the idea of leaving our apartment the next day, but intrigued by what awaits in Barcelona...

To be continued..