The phrase is apt. Toledo has long been considered the spiritual center of Spain, both for the Moors and the Catholics. We got on our bus and motored south from Madrid about an hour. Toledo is perched on a rocky mound, surrounded on three sides by the Rio Tajo. It’s a spectacular setting.
The Romans got here in 192 BC and built their fortress (the Alcazar) on top (big building dominating the right skyline above), which later was “remodeled” by the Visigoths and everyone else. The Moors showed up in the 8th century, and made Toledo a model of religious tolerance. I wish the fanatics today would learn from their forebears. This attitude continued when El Cid and Alfonso VI captured the place in 1085. But the Catholic Church gradually developed profound hostility towards Arabs and Jews, Ferdinand expelling the latter in 1492 as part of the Inquisition, and finally ousting even the converted Arabs in 1601. El Greco lived and worked here from 1572 until his death in 1614, during the time of the great intellectual and artistic decline, which supposedly is reflected in his works. Most of the Alcazar was rebuilt many times, especially after the civil war of 1936-39. We didn’t go there, but rather focused on the huge cathedral, seen at the center of the skyline.
The exterior is unremarkable, to my eye, a gothic façade inspired by Chartres and others.
It’s the inside that was special, and it contained an element that I think was the most striking thing I saw on our entire trip. This is purely subjective, of course, and Loni thought other stuff was more interesting. But, it struck me and I was dazzled. Atop the middle of the ambulatory is a skylight cut into the ceiling by Narciso Tomeso to illuminate a baroque piece on the floor below, known as the Transparente. The Transparente is supposed to be the star of the show, and the skylight a mere means of lighting his masterwork. But that hole in the ceiling had me agog. Along the edges of the skylight are an array of statues of Biblical figures who seem to peer down into the cathedral. It was almost creepy, but wonderful. Here’s the basic view, but the opening is overexposed.
Now here’s the opening as it appears to the eye. I’ve never seen anything like it.
OK, so what was Tome trying to illuminate? The Transparente. Frankly, it was just a lot of elaborate jumble to me. But you can see that the light from the hole makes it glow in an otherwise dim space.
Off the northern end is the exquisite sacristy, with its late-baroque ceiling and several El Grecos, including El Espolio (Christ Being Stripped of His Raiment).
The high alter was a mass of gold applied over wood. Way too busy for my taste. Looks like hanging moss.
More interesting, to my eye, were the choir seats, elaborately carved and still looking beautiful hundreds of years later. At left below, the seat is flipped up, revealing the snakes underneath waiting to bite the inattentive. Above the seat back are carved panels depicting various battles or events. I think this one was of El Cid.
Enough with the Cathedral. Except for the god-hole and the seats, I thought it was way too fussy and cramped. On to a more pedestrian destination, but one which was essential. Our local guide led the way with that embarrassing group flag. On our last Collette trip, 10 years ago, to Australia and New Zealand with Mom, was just about the beginning of this blog. At that time, we were easily the youngest members of the group. Now, well, we’re mainstream. Sigh.
We were off to an artisan shop where they did gold engraving just like has been done for centuries. It was interesting to see them inserting hair-like strands into the works, and the gift shop had plenty of pieces to ponder, from swords to brooches. But our real intent was to use their bathrooms. There are virtually no public bathrooms in Spain outside of museums. If you want to go, you buy something in a café and use theirs. But these shops depend upon the tourist trade, so to entice you in they provide decent facilities. Collette always managed to find us some place to go every 1 1/2 hours or so. With all the geriatric bladders, it was a necessity!
Don Quixote is, of course, alive and well in Spain. Cervantes is widely regarded as the father of modern Spanish, as his masterwork had ten times the word count of any other contemporary piece, and contained virtually every word in the then-Spanish language. Or so said our guide. In between the cathedral and the gold shop, we stopped for a look at the Alcantara Bridge, which had Roman understructure and Moorish and later end-pillars. Built to last! Toledo and its environs were really pretty and often dramatic. Liked it a lot.
Crossing the bridge to get to the tour bus. As with all our trips, follow the red hat!
Done with Toledo, we headed back to Madrid for a visit to the 18th century Royal Palace, set on the site of the first foundation laid in Madrid, the 9th century military post set up by Mohamed I. It’s not a residence, but is used for government functions and serves as a museum of sorts. It’s a colossal thing, built as three sides of a square, enclosing a massive courtyard.
It has 2,800 opulent rooms (!). The official guided tour, which we did not take, is a mile in length. The banquet room table, used for state dinners, seats up to 140! Unfortunately, we could only take photos in one gallery area, so you’ll just have to imagine (or google).
As with all tours, there are “side” tour options you can spring for, at a fairly healthy price. One of those was for tonight, deemed “Madrid by Night with Tapas Dinner.” According to the tour book, 18 people would be needed in order to run this option. We mustered only 13, but I guess that still afforded ample profit (at $85 EACH, I should think so). Our first stop was at the Plaza Mayor, the city’s largest gathering place for people meeting and watching. One side of the square (entirely ringed by buildings) had this frontage with rather racy paintings on the side.
The whole plaza is huge, and I suspect is a madhouse when they’re really celebrating something. Who’d want to live right on such a place? We were there fairly early in the evening, still plenty of light out, so it wasn’t too crowded. Spain doesn’t “happen” until well after dark.
You will note the double image of the boy in the foreground. That’s caused by my using the HDR (High Dynamic Range) function of my new Lumix LX100. Where there are scenes with very bright parts (sun bouncing off the building on the left) and other shady spots, you can turn on this feature and it takes three shots with one press of the button, in rapid succession, each with a different exposure value to accommodate the bright and dark parts. The camera then instantly combines all three into one photo with, ideally, proper exposure for each of the elements. Well, it works fairly well in a lot of situations, but if anything is moving while the 3 shots are being fired off, you could get a motion blur that the program could not resolve. So, the best thing to use it on is a static scene, using a tripod so there is no movement. Anyway, next we were off to dinner.
We ended up at Los Galayos, in a 16th century basement wine-cellar restaurant that, at one time hundreds of years ago, was a building on the waterfront. Today, we are probably half a mile from any water. Our happy band, below. The balding guy to my right (you can spot, me, right?) was a retired bespoke shoe maker from Yorkshire, a very nice guy who had one of those nervous laugh tics that ended virtually every phrase that came out of his mouth.
The restaurant has been operating continuously since the 1890’s. We both had a falling-off-the-bone, utterly succulent, roast suckling pig which tasted every bit as good as it sounds. It had a delicious apple compote as a side.
This was preceded by several rounds of tapas (meh; olives, toasted asparagus & goat cheese, cod tart, potato frittata) and a salad, ended with a nice Napoleon for dessert, and all the grappa (see bottle, above) you could handle. In my case, zero. They kept the wine flowing as well, and our table demolished a ton. I had beer, in deference to my radiation-scarred throat. Below, at right, is our guide, Nadine, Boston born, Portuguese islander by descent, five-year veteran of Spanish tours, and now a resident of Canada by virtue of her boyfriend. She was a sweetheart throughout the trip, and a source of endless factoids about everything we were seeing. On the left are Joe and his daughter, Ilda. She’s U.S. born, but he was a Barcelona native, and this trip was his opportunity to show her his country of birth. Nice folks.
After dinner, we strolled over to the San Miguel mercado, a sort of farmer’s market that goes on to all hours of the night, lots of wrought iron holding up a high, tin roof. It had stalls for fresh fruit, fish, meats, shellfish, tapas bars, and at least twenty wine bars. It was one big party. This was on a Monday night. When do these people sleep?
The rest of the Madrid-By-Night was a crawling bus ride around the same monuments we had seen during the day, and not particularly well-lit at night. We could have skipped this part altogether and not missed a thing. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was 11:30 and time to crash. The end of our first full day of touring. We were exhausted, but happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment