Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Toledo!

On Sunday, September 9th I visited Toledo as a SLU Madrid day trip. Toledo, as described by SLU is "a world heritage sit located just outside of Madrid. It is known as the "city of three cultures" because Christians, Arabs and Jews lived together in this city for centuries. Behind it's walls, Toledo preserves an artistic and cultural legacy in the form of churches, palaces, fortresses, mosques and synagogues". So thats a little background. We took a coach bus to get their and had a tour guide with us the whole way. I thought id be nice to have a tour guide but then after having this lady, I dont think id want another one. She was really bossy, and got mad at us for walking slow, even though I have a broken foot and me walking that much at all is pretty impressive. She also was very restrictive on where we could go, treating us like elementary school kids on a field trip. It was quite annoying. Luckily, I had some nice friends that walked slow with me and didn't leave me behind. Everyone also shared my frustration of the tour guide and her strictness.
Anyways though, besides the tour guide I thought Toledo was a really cool city. You can definitely see the three cultural influences strongly in the city. Right when we got into Toledo we went to a gift shop where artists hand-make these gold pendants that are unique to Toledo. They have three different levels of artistry of the pendants; beginner, intermediate and master, and the prices go up based on skill level. The master ones were stunning. Some where blue and green with silver gold and black designs. My favorite one was beyond pretty but it was 150 euros. I tried to take a picture of it but my camera was being wierd so unfortunately I can't post what it looks like. It was beautiful. I was debating if I should get one, and I couldn't decide if I should just get a cheap one even thought they weren't as pretty as the upper level ones so I just splurged and got a master level ones (I still attempted to be frugal and got one of the cheapest master level pendants). I feel a little guilty but its stunning and its a unique pendant that can't be found anywhere else in the world so thats how im justifying it.
We went to a mosque church thing that was really pretty. You could definitely see the tri-cultural influence in it. There is a picture above. Im my art history class we learned that islam style is characterized by horseshoe shaped arches, as you can see above, and poor materials that are decorated to make them look richer.
We also went to this really pretty church. I forgot the name of it but it was HUGE. It was also like a church museum with artwork from El Greco, and a 15th century bible and other historic artifacts.

I probably would have known the name of the church and everything if I had been listening to the tour guide but she just talked so much my attention span only lasted the first minute or so. Also, my foot was hurting pretty bad from a lot of walking, mostly all uphill, so there were times on the tour when I just sat on floor. That’s probably frowned upon, especially since we were in a lot of religious establishments but no one yelled at me so it must have been ok. Sitting on the floor in one part of the big church actually worked out very nicely because there was a cool painting on the ceiling that I took a picture of while I was laying on the floor.



15th century bible, written and illustrated by hand

The crown of queen Isabel of Spain

really pretty ceiling

really pretty stained glass window

resting in the church

painting on the ceiling that I laid on the floor to get a picture of

view of toledo


me and tyler in toledo
All in all, the trip was worth it for the scenery, the churches and meeting new people but I was exhausted by the end of the day. Since my senora was gone this weekend, and she usually drives me to school, after the trip I had to walk all the way home. It’s only like 1.25 miles away but after a full day of walking it was just exhausting. When I finally got back home, it was only 6 pm, I took a nap until dinner (8 pm) and then basically sat in my bed for the rest of the night. 




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