Excursión a Toledo (excursion to Toledo)

We actually had our own bus for this and so we met at the aqueduct around 8 and took the bus to Toledo. Once again, most of us slept for this bus it took us about 2 hours to get there. When we got there, we met our tour guide, María, and drove to Los cigarrilles, or basically the houses in the hills around Toledo (which can cost around 2 million euros). From the hills we could see the city, which was stunning.

María told us different facts about the city and then we had the bus drop us off near the escalators ( I believe there are two sets in Toledo), which took us near the plaza de Zocodover. From the plaza, we headed to the Cathedral in Toledo. The Catheddral was a mix of different styles, including Romanesque, baroque, and Rococo.

It was extremely huge and it felt like everything was decorated beautifully. My favorite part was the salon with the painting by Goya, not because of his painting, but because of the beautiful ceiling. I really loved that ceiling. 

One more interesting thing was hat above every cardinal's tomb, there was a hat. The legend is that if the hat drops, that means that the cardinal's soul has gone to heaven. 

I really enjoyed the Baroque masterpiece behind the altar. It was heavily decorated and the light shown perfectly on it. 

I also really liked the room with all of the pictures of the previos cardinals. The room was full of history and I really enjoyed that part. 

After that, we went to see the painting The Burial of the Count of Orgaz or in Spanish El encierro de la corde de Orgaz. I didn't realize that there was so much history behind this painting or that it is divided by the celestial (top) and terrestrial (bottom). Photos are not permitted so I was unable to get a picture of that. I do have a pictures of this thought. 

Finally, we headed to Santa Maria La Blanca which used to be a synogogue. It was really cool to see the combination of Jewish and Arabic designs and, although the design on the synogogue was simple, it was very beautiful. 

We then headed to the bridge to meet our bus. The bridge went over one of the rivers that surrounded Toledo and (if you didn't have limits because of your insurance) you could zip line across the river. One of our advisors decided to do this and I think that was one of the best parts of our day. 

After that we got back on the bus and ate lunch. We were then once again dropped off at the escalators and went our own way after that. My group decided to get marzipan first, which is a specialty of Toledo. It was extremely tasty and I probably would have eaten more if I could have. Sadly, it is freakishly expensive.

We then headed into different shops, most with swords or damasquinadas, which are basically little plates with gold leaf enbeded in them. In some stores, you could actually see people making them. There were also a lot of ceramic items and I ended up getting a little rainbow ceramic piece. (Fact: Toledo is where the swords for Lord of the Rings (or Señor de Los Anilllos) were made. You can buy tons of the merchandise there, including swords of many of the main characters.) after shopping, we decided to get smoothies and slushies, which were extremely good. We then met back up with the group and headed home.