Toledo el Hermoso

Toledo is a very beautiful city and very, very old.  We had tours today of el museo Santa Cruz, Santa Maria la Blanca synagogue, and el Catedral Primada Santa María de Toledo.  Santa Cruz is an old cathedral, built right before the Christians reconquered Granada from the Muslims in 1493.  The Santa Maria la Blanca synagogue was very interesting because although Catholics later claimed the building, they still respect the Jewish tradition by lighting candles for the Sabbath every Friday night.  Toledo is well known for being a place where Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived together in harmony.  Toledo was also the home of El Greco and we saw The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, one of his most famous paintings, in Santo Tóme.

After our tour of the city we had free time to go eat lunch and wander around.  So several of us went to a small restaurant hidden in some of the narrow streets to eat.  It was really good, but what people were telling be about the portions in Spain is definitely true.  Since I've gotten here I've had pretty much nothing but tapas, small appetizers shared between everyone.  So I'm just about always hungry, hopefully that will change once we get to Sevilla tomorrow!

Yesterday, in Madrid, we went to El Museo Prado and El Palacio Real.  El Museo Prado is a huge museum and has lots of famous paintings by Goya, Velazquez, and others.  And the Royal Palace was out of this world.  It was a huge complex, the King actually moved out of it because he thought it was too big.  The palace also had the largest collection of Stradivarius violins in the world.

We have another ISA meeting tonight down in the hotel lobby, and then afterward hopefully I'll go get some dinner somewhere.  Tomorrow we leave for Sevilla.  It's about a six hour bus ride from here (although the high-speed train from Madrid gets there in two hours) so I'll have plenty of time for a nap.