TOLAYTHO

SOOOO another week in the books and Sarah, Theresa, and I decided to take a trip to Tolaytho (Toldeo). My art history of Madrid teacher pronounces it really cool. The day started with a metro ride to the train station. We had given ourselves plenty of time just in case.

We got to the train station and went towards the ticket machines. We were all ready to go until none of our credit cards were accepted… whoops. Luckily Sarah was thinking on her toes and we headed towards the actual ticket counter and were able to get three seats next to each other on the train we wanted with no problem.

The nice thing about Toledo is that its super close! It was only about a half hour away from Madrid so it was a nice speedy trip.

Now I really had no plans or idea what we were going to do. I was just ready for adventure and ready to wonder and learn all about Toldeo.

I guess when we got there, Sarah and Theresa were ready to have a more planned out day. However, they forgot the magical book which told us all about what to do in Toldeo. So we had a map that the train station gave us and that was it J

Adventure time. So we stared at a really poor map for a while and tried to figure out where to go. We knew the two things that we definitely wanted to do was see the Cathedral and see El Greco’s painting of the Burial of Lord Orgaz. Other then that we did not know what to expect. So we decided to basically just start walking and hope for the best. We soon realized that the train station was basically on the outskirts and that after walking for a little ways we would be in the heart of Toldeo so we had made the right decision.

We first go to this giant arch and bridge that led us in to Toledo. Toledo is pretty sweet because it is has a river that surrounds it and then there are mountains outside of the river. It makes for some pretty cool views and scenery.

So we made our way across the bridge and then found this little tower. There was a small door that was open so my curiosity was being tapped. Theresa had already headed up so I decided I wanted to see what it was all about too. It was a super tight stairway and then I got to a certain spot and there were guys working there speaking Spanish and it definitely didn’t feel like I was supposed to be there, but I continued up. Finally got to the top of this tower and found Theresa. It was pretty sweet and was definitely higher than I had originally thought. We enjoyed the view for a bit and then headed back down. When we got back down we looked at where to go. The options were up, up, or up…. So we went up.

 

Toledo is very hilly and full of cobble stone streets. So we had a fun time walking/hiking are way around Toledo. After checking the maps a few times we finally made our way to the Cathedral.

The Cathedral was unreal. So massive. So Beautiful. So much art. So much decoration. That Golden altarpiece tho? Incredible. I think we spent 2-3 hours just walking around.

Probably the scariest moment was when we went to a tomb room and I started to lean against a lamp and it started to move and I saw myself going face first into a tomb… Yikes that would have been bad haha. Luckily I was able to stop myself.

They also had this room just for all the gold gifts they had collected over the years. Unreal. It was quite the place. Probably could have stayed longer to just admire all the beauty of the place, but my feet were getting tired and my stomach was starting to get rumble.

We found a nice place for a nice lunch. I think the best part about it was just getting to sit after the crazy hills of Toledo and meandering the Cathedral. I went with a delicious pizza and a water (SO DEHYDRATED). Much need refuel. Funny part of this stop was that the bathrooms were weird and not that well labeled so I almost had Sarah convinced to go into the guys bathroom where there were only urinals, but she figured it out at the last second. Dang it. :p

We continued on our journey in search of EL GRECO. I’m kind of an art noob so I didn’t really know what was happening, but when I saw the painting of the burial of Lord Orgaz I was blown away. El Greco was a genius. Super beautiful painting with a depiction of the earthly world and the heavenly world. The lighting of it was super interesting as well. So much dark violet color in contrast with bright colors. Super unique. So we admired that for a while and then were on our way. We had knocked off the two things on our list and still had a good chunk of the day to spend in Toldeo. The tickets we had bought to return to Madrid weren’t until 8 or 9. So we went in search of a park so that we could relax for a while and play some cards. Well we never really found a grassy field to sprawl out in, but we did find this cool look out point that had a beautiful view of the rushing river and the majestic mountains. We then found this wall/bench to sit on and we proceed to play uno for quite sometime. After a good rest we started up on are journey again, basically just wondering taking in Toledo. Toldeo makes and sells a lot of swords. Toledo is a very interesting historical town because it served as the Islam capital when Islam was in control of Spain, but the Catholics reclaimed it in 1085 so you can find influence from both cultures, but a lot with the Catholic knights as you can find swords and statues everywhereeee. I even picked up a sword at one of those stores… knights must have had superb upper body strength. Would have been tough to swing around with accuracy and power.

 

We stopped at a little coffee shop to get a little treat and basically just wait for our train. I got this delicious frozen lemonade drink while Sarah and Theresa got more chocolate and churros. We played yahtzee on Sarah’s phone which has become a go to in times of not knowing what to do/ being too tired to do anything else. So we relaxed there for a bit and enjoyed our treats.

On the way out of town we found a picture of the burial of lord Orgaz where you could put your own face in the pictures. So of course we couldn’t pass that up haha.

Overall, very tiresome and awesome trip to Toledo with two awesome friends.

Some other highlights of the week was the Mass of the Holy Spirit on Thursday. Really great service and nice start to the school year. President Pastello of SLU was even there so that was pretty cool. Of course he reached out his hand to Sarah to introduce himself to her…. Only Sarah Nash. So awesome.

More basketball was played in the evenings.

More Sangria. More cards.

Thoughts about the MCAT and scheduling classes crept into my mind

Classes going well.

Figuring out a place for service while here in Madrid.

And yeah basically just enjoying life J