Holy Toledo

Today Ralph and I did our own things. I like churches more than he does, and he likes modern art more than I do, so I took a day trip to Toledo, while Ralph stayed in Madrid and went to the Reina Sofia museum. 

The train station (a modern building, built to match the rest of the city):

Cervantes statue

The first holy building of the day, Toledo Cathedral:

The high altar

The choir

Carved choir stalls

Lectern in the choir

Organ #1

Organ #2

Chapter House door

Chapter House

Chapter House

Sacristy

The Disrobing of Christ (El Greco, 1579)

(there were many other paintings there, as you can see in the photo above this one. A mini museum!)

Chapel of the New Kings

The next holy building of the day was a mosque, the Mesquita del Cristo de la Luz, built in 999. (A Christian apse was added at a later date.)

To complete my holy tour of Toledo, I walked to the Jewish Quarter and visited the Tránsito Synagogue and Sephardic Jewish Museum.

After all of this walking around in 95-degree weather, it was time for a gelato break:

One last view of Toledo on my way back to the train station:

Since we didn’t have enough time in Seville to squeeze in a flamenco performance, we went to a show this evening. Everyone was amazing, but I was especially impressed by the guitarist. Watching his fingers fly over the strings was fascinating!

Dinner after the show (on the early side for Spain, but fashionably late for us) was a selection of tapas: Iberian ham, Iberian chorizo on toast, and shrimp with aioli on toast. 

I didn’t manage to do everything I wanted to in Spain (somehow we missed eating paella, except for the noodle version on the Barcelona food tour), but I guess that means I’ll have to come back!