Sunday, August 28, 2011

Toledo, OH's sister city

I couldn't believe it but in their treasury next to all the gold gothic style items and great El Greco paintings there is a small glass thing given by Toldeo, OH to Toldeo, Spain. I really wonder what is sitting at the city hall in Toledo, OH from Toledo, Spain.

Today we day tripped to another medieval city where you just sit and wonder how in the world it was created. Not with a wonder like the aquaduct and how did they do it without mortar, but rather how did they just keep building stuff and not end up with lots of dead ends? And how was the land given out? And why did they make the walls angled?

Welcome to Toledo

Toledo is the first city we've seen that still has a legitimate city wall in tact. I'm not sure if it is complete as I didn't walk all the way around it but if the civilized world comes to some sort of end I'm going to make my way to that city because it was never taken by force.

Also, quick parent travel tip: Bring a carrier for your non walking child in Toledo. We thought maybe it would be okay with a stroller since Joshua carried him all day yesterday in Segovia but we were wrong. We both ended up carrying the stroller on most streets.

Lunch time!
Overall it was a great day of exploration and they have a great cathedral. Interesting tidbit of the day: the cardinals get to choose where they are buried in the cathedral. Literally anywhere. They just dig a hole in the 1000 year old tile and bury them and then they hang their red hats over that spot until they rot away. We found 3 red hats rotting from the ceiling and I wish I'd thought to keep looking to see how many we can find. I bet it takes a while for that red velvet to rot away so I'm sure there are more.

Cathedral

You'll also notice we have a lot of pictures at the train station. We had tickets for the last train of the day but we finished up early and thought we'd be responsible American parents and get our kid to bed before 11pm by catching an earlier train. Well it turns out everyone in Madrid goes to Toledo on Saturday so all the other trains were booked up. Now the train station was very interesting and it entertained us for a good 20 minutes but we were there for over 3 hours which wasn't the end of the world but was exhausting for one 15 month old.

Ehren melting down

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