Day 3 Toledo and Cordoba

We were awakened at 6:45 to begin our journey to Toledo. The day was cold and overcast and I was suddenly regretting bringing 8 dresses to wear. Mari Luce came with us on the bus and gave us facts along our drive. About 20 mins into our drive we were pulled over by the police. Apparently there are very strict bus driver regulations in Spain and a lot of documentation is necessary. The regulation says something like drivers are only allowed to drive for 3 hours straight and then they are required to take a 30 min break. It took around 25 mins for the cops to go through the paperwork and confirm we were being safe before we were allowed back on the road.

Policio checking the driver

Can't escape the popo even across the world

After another hour of driving, we reached the walled city of Toledo. It is a fortress on top of a hill and it is stunning. There is a river forming a natural barrier to the surrounding landscape that was breathtaking. The old city of Toledo is still behind the original wall and the new city surrounds it on the outside of the wall. The streets within the wall are so narrow the bus couldn't fit so we were dropped off at an escalator that carried us up into the city. The streets were so narrow they were barely wide enough for compact cars to drive through and they twisted and turned and made absolutely no sense. Mari Luce explained to us that this was to confuse an enemy if they ever infiltrated the city. The streets were made of cobblestone and rock that was uneven and made for very interesting walking.

Toledo

Toledo is most famous for its swords and metal work. They made most of the armies of Spain's swords through the ages and continue making prize swords today. One of the coolest facts about that is Toledo was asked to design the swords used in Lord of the Rings. (Everyone who knows me knows I have a love affair with Lord of the Rings, I can basically quote every movie and have seen them hundreds of times...for real hundreds) They had mini replicas all over the city of the LOTR swords and I wanted to bring one home SO badly, but I was informed it probably wouldn't make it through customs. We walked through a few of their metal shops and watched the men working on carving designs with gold. It was beautiful but so expensive.

Narrow streets for people and cars

Mari Luce

Metal worker

Swords!

Awesome handles...Princess Bride swords

All I really wanted but couldn't bring home :(

After walking around the shops, we stumbled upon our first Spanish Cathedral. It was in the gothic style and it was stunning. For someone like me who had never really seen any Catholic cathedrals in my life, it was jaw dropping. All of the carvings and arches and details were overwhelming- I think I took at least 30 pictures of this one building. The Last Supper was painstakingly carved out over the front doors and it was awesome.

Last supper over the door

Close up of the last supper

Toledo is also famous for its marzipan. I had heard of it before but I couldn't remember ever trying it. We were told it's traditionally a Christmastime food in Spain, but Toledo is famous for it all year around. Being brave, I decided to try a piece and I was super disappointed. It was not very good at all. I had planned on bringing some home since that is what they were famous for but quickly changed my mind.

Toledo is like many of the cities in Spain in that it was home to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim people throughout time. The layers of the city show the different influences. There was the Jewish quarter that was marked by Stars of David tiles set in the road, there was a monumento nacional (National Monument) named Santa Maria La Blanca that had at one time also been a Jewish synagogue and a Christian church, and there were different religious symbols marking the walls. We went into the building and although it was completely empty and no longer used as a church, the religious symbols were still overlapping everywhere. It was sad to see this beautiful building reduced to nothing more than an empty museum.

Lastly we went and saw the painting The Burial of Count Orgaz in the tower of Santo Tome by El Greco. This painting is painted above the tomb of Don Gonzalo Ruiz (the subject of the painting) and cannot be moved so you have to file reverently into this old church that only serves as a tomb now. The painting is beautiful and has been preserved well from the late 1500s. It shows the burial of the count and the sadness of his people when he died. El Greco was somewhat mischievous and painted himself as well as his son into the painting. It was another sign that I actually do enjoy art.

We then went on to eat one of my favorite lunches of the entire trip. We stumbled upon a cafe that offered everything potato. I ordered a huge baked potato that came with ham, cheese, green olives, corn and sour cream-like-yogurt. It was amazing, even typing this my mouth is watering for another one just like that. After a bit of shopping we met up with the bus and headed on to Cordoba.

Narrow streets of Toledo

Walls built in different time periods

City Hall in Toledo

Yummiest baked potato I've ever had

Bridge out of Toledo

Car entrance to the city

View on the way out

When we finally arrived in Cordoba it was dinner time (which in Spain is around 9 pm). After a delicious buffet provided by the hotel, we wandered around Cordoba a little bit before the sun went down. Our hotel had a rooftop pool and lookout and we could see the whole city. It was another beautiful city, thank you Spain.

The hotel we stayed at

View from the roof

Cordoba

The yummiest ice cream ever

Madrid Day 2

To start the morning off on the second day, Alex and I were introduced to European breakfast. They believe the day should start off with fresh squeezed fruit juice and I wholeheartedly agree. My favorite juice was fresh peach juice- it was amazing. The second most amazing thing about European breakfasts are the croissants. Basically the bread things that we call croissants here in the United States are dry, hard, nasty versions of the delicate, flaking, delicious pastry that is a croissant. To top of the deliciousness, the Spaniards put chocolate in some of these croissants. Not the super sweet sugary version of chocolate that we are used to, but a more bitter natural chocolate that is pretty amazing. Ha to sum up the foodgasm paragraph- the breakfast selection in Spain is the best.

After breakfast we were given a bus tour of Madrid. A local woman served as our guide for the morning and allowed us to see what a real life Spaniard woman was like. Her name was Mari Luce and she was amazing! We started in the heart of Madrid at a park that is dedicated to Don Quixote and worked our way from there. We toured the grounds of the Royal Palace in Madrid and stood in awe of the huge building. As I mentioned, one of my reasons for going to Spain was castles. This was not a castle, it was a palace. Although the current king chose not to live there anymore, there are still working government rooms and official rooms inside. It kinda puts the White House to shame (I know bad for me to say).

Bus selfie!

The Palace in Madrid

Pretty grounds around the Palace

Best friends at the Palace

As we continued getting to know Madrid, we drove past all of the major sites. This included the futbol stadium San Bernabeu, the home to Real Madrid. We only got to drive past the outside, but it was HUGE! I am still sad we didn't get to go to a game while we were there, but it gives me an excellent reason to go back!! The streets in Madrid are very confusing as I mentioned before so I figured we had ventured far away on our tour and would have to take some time getting back to where we started. In reality, we had made a loop and were about right where we started.

Madrid City Hall

One of the oldest buildings in Madrid

Curvy streets and pretty buildings

Pretty building

We finished the tour at the Museo Nacional del Prado (the Prado Museum). I was honestly kind of worried about spending so much time in an art museum- I have 0 artistic abilities and figured it would be boring walking around. Boy was I wrong. Mari Luce took us through the museum and showed us some amazing pieces of art. Having someone explain what the painter was trying to say, what time of his life he painted the picture in, and what was going on historically makes all the difference in the world. I had an amazing time and came away from the experience with a newfound appreciation for art. The museum was hosting an exhibit featuring El Greco, a famous Spanish painter from the late 1500's. His paintings were interesting, but my favorite paintings in the museum were by Diego Velazquez. He lived at court and painted portraits of the rulers that were all in the museum. His most famous work is Las Meninas which also happened to be my favorite painting. There are so many different ways to look at it and my favorite interpretation is that Velasquez was painting you, the viewer, as the royals. Although we didn't realize it at the time, this painting is a symbol of Spain. For the rest of our trip we saw the little girls in the painting everywhere. Spain is super proud of that artwork.

Las Meninas

After the museum we decided we wanted to go back to the palace and see the inside. We took the "Royal Palace Tour" and it was amazing. The palace is stunning. There are over 1,000 rooms and all of them are decorated to the max. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside which kind of helped me to focus on everything. They had guards posted in each room to keep people where they are supposed to be and make sure no one breaks the picture rule. The walls were carpeted or had porcelain inlays. The china from all of the decades was beautiful and I thought of sneaking a picture for my grandma (I didn't, those Spanish guards take their job very seriously and I totally would have been caught) The ceilings in each room were carefully thought out and frescoed or covered with expensive tapestries. The Spanish private clock collection was on display throughout the rooms and some of the coolest clocks I've ever seen were there. The royal chapel inside the palace was beautiful- still one of my favorites even after all of the cathedrals we saw in the rest of the country. One of my favorite things was all of the chandeliers- every main room had a huge chandelier with hundreds of details that were different on each one. My favorite room was the throne room, which is still the "official throne room" for the royalty of Spain. It was beautiful, all red and black probably to be imposing. The lion is found everywhere in Spain, even on their flag, and there were lions guarding the thrones in the throne room. Do yourself a favor and google "Royal Palace Madrid Inside" and look through the pictures. It will be worth it I promise- it was absolutely stunning.

The King's dressing room

The Throne Room

View from inside the gates- the doors to enter

After we made it through the palace we stopped by the royal armory and checked out all of the armor throughout the years. There was some cool armor- the Spanish kept track of their historical armor through the years and it was fun to see how the knights must have looked. There were giant broad swords, maces, shields, daggers, lances and crossbows. There were kings who fought in head to toe chain mail and other kings who only wore a chest plate. Some suits of armor even included funny armor shoes and armor for the horses.

After leaving the palace we did a little shopping and then set out on a walking adventure to find the Hard Rock Cafe. My dad collects the guitar pins and I thought that would be a pretty cool thing to bring him. Unfortunately I had the map and was trying to navigate and I got us pretty turned around. I usually rely on my phone with Google maps to get anywhere and using a real life map ended up getting us on the right street but about 2 miles in the wrong direction. Ha after we discovered this, I was relieved of my map duties for the rest of the trip and we slowly made our way into the right direction. Getting "lost" in Madrid was pretty awesome tho. We wandered through streets we wouldn't have seen and got to see how everything was connected.

The circular route we took to Hard Rock

We found Hard rock and I was able to pick out a super cool Don Quixote guitar pin for my dad. We slowly made our way back to the hotel and grabbed some delicious pizza and lemon Fanta for dinner. Lemon Fanta kind of rocks my world and it isn't available in the US. I'm pretty sad about it!

Random frog statue we found in our wanderings

Madrid is stunning at night

Madrid was a beautiful city and we were only able to scratch the surface. I would love to go and spend a month or a year in this city... let's be honest I would love to live there!! Madrid, I will return. I still have a million things left to do :)