Castles, fountains and statues: Toledo and Madrid

Tuesday was all travel. To Palafrugell by cab, to Girona by bus, train 1 to Barcelona, train 2 to Madrid, train 3 to Toledo. This train got up to 299km/hr as we raced across the central mesa area of Spain, but couldn't quite top the 300km/hr. Frustrating that. 

Lots of dry, scrubby country, so it was good to see it at speed!  A lot of walking and carrying bags for the day but the tour planner Ann, had nailed all the timings, so all the transfers worked well.

Our host at Apartamentos Cervantes picked us up at the rail station at Toledo, and drove us to the apartment via the lookout over this lovely city. 

We did a preliminary explore and had a quiet evening at home with some pretty plain fare. The scrambled eggs, tomato and avocado was pretty good.

Washing day again, and our appliance use stretched the capacity of the apartment power supply and we had a few outages. Rafael responded pretty quickly and had a sparkie on the job within an hour!! So we got it done without too much inconvenience other than the washing powder going through on the rinse cycle.

It was explore the city day today. It has three distinct ancient areas: Christian, Muslim and Jewish. So plenty of diverse architecture and a long history to be explored. The Alcazar, mediaeval gates and walls and more modern history too, like the bullet scars on building walls dating from the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). 

We saw the cathedral in all its glory, including its 15 El Grecos. It is quite a sprawling building. 

Great audio guide tour explaining so much splendour. Whimsical insights from our guidebook and the audioguide such as "St Peter knows how to hold a fish" (see detailed photo.) It comes from the stunning altarpiece just above it.) Also among all the saints, apostles and kings, is the statue of a shepherd, the one in the hood, just below King Alfonso VIII whose army he guided through a pass in the mountains, catching the Arab forces by surprise. Thus the Battle of Las Navas was won, an important turning point in the Christian Reconquista of Spain. 

The grandeur of the cathedral certainly recognises Toledo’s claim to be Spain’s leading Catholic city.  But Rafael, our host, commented that because of its diverse history and links there are often international meetings here regarding Israel and Palestine.

The Muslim part of our tour was a fizzer, they were closed for lunch, so we only saw the exterior of the remaining mosque. 

Then it was on to Santo Tome (Doubting Thomas), another church, which has on display one of the most famous El Greco paintings (The Burial of the Count of Orgaz). No pics allowed, but it is impressive. After that it was Sinagoga del Transito, now a museo covering the history of the Jews in this part of the world. The history of the Israeli tribes spanning their adventures from Egypt to Mesopotamia, and their kingdoms and activities in and around their current country is intriguing. The thrust of some of the interpretive displays is that "Western historians" tend to regard all this stuff as religious stories, rather than history, so it has no political or historical credence. They obviously need a Waitangi Tribunal to sort it all out.

We then went on to the church of San Juan de Los Reyes. The building of this was commissioned by Queen Isabella in 1477. It is very light and airy, very ornate and has a lovely cloisters area.

For all of our time here we’ve walked past so many, many shops (and dallied in a few) selling jewellery, pocket knives galore, medieval knights’ gear. As Choco says, this is THE place to replace your fishing and  filleting knives.

You can get a full suit of armour for about 4500 Euros, but if you just need a sword and a shield you can probably get away with about 200 Euros. Thank goodness it’s a long way home.

The jewellery is called damascene, and is made by hammering silver or gold into a black base. Very intricate with a lot of the iconography of the city, like doves, included. Jewellery is much more transportable than armour, says Ann, so we'll pack some of that!

And of course there’s the Iberian ham shops. Toledo is keeping the map reader busy. No street is straight, street signage is intermittent and the map isn’t always complete! But it is very pretty as it is currently gearing up for the Feast of Corpus Christi on 26 May. Every street in town has wall and balcony hangings and the procession route has canvas awnings suspended down the middle of the streets.

On the feast day a Monstrance containing the Eucharist will be paraded through the streets and flowers will fall from the suspended awnings. It is the biggest day of the year for Toledo, and, even as a native Toledan, our host here, Rafael, is very excited about it.


Dinner on the last night was at one of Rafael’s recommendations, Meson La Orza, on the other side of the town from us in the Jewish Quarter but the walking is interesting and the walk home after dinner is a good thing to do.  The starter for me was Alcachofas Salteadas and I've given it the star of the “standard bred” menus we’ve had in all our time away. Artichokes and squid, all covered in olive oil and other tasty little dobs, it was just fantastic.

We managed to walk straight home OK, much better in fact than our reconnoitre this afternoon when we attempted to scout out tonight’s route to the restaurant. Did spot this clever light signage defining the edges of the Jewish quarter.

Rafael was going to Madrid for business and so offered to drop us at our hotel, saving us the hassle of a train trip and the transfers each end, which was just fantastic. He was also taking a friend into the city so we had an interesting drive into Madrid with lots of background and pointers on things to do.

We arrived early for check in but that was OK for Hotel Liabeny. For the afternoon we did a Rick Steve self-guided walk, starting at the plaque which marks the geographic centre of Spain in Plaza Puerta del Sol, just down the road from our hotel.

There are lots of statues in the area, including one of a bear and the strawberry tree which is the emblem of Madrid. Madrid used to be called Usarios because of the large number of bears in the surrounding countryside, and their favourite fruit? The Madrono (Strawberry Tree).

We walked on up the slight hill to the Plaza Mayor in all its 140m by 104m glory, (Ann had to take this picture in panorama mode to get it all in!)

This was once the scene of Inquisition torture and executions, bullfights and the like but now is dominantly cafes. We passed lots of tourist shops. We’ve lost the swords and pocket knives of Toledo and have picked up flamenco dresses and soccer paraphernalia, including lots with No 10 Messe (the biter) on the back. Further on we went past churches and memorials to fallen Spaniards, in both the Naploeonic and 2008 terrorist attacks.

We visited the recently consecrated Catedral de la Almundena. This is very light and airy and crispy modern inside.

It was opened by Pope John Paul II in 1993. While there are lots of cathedrals in Europe they haven’t stopped building them yet. The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is still in progress and probably will be for another 50 years or so.

The Palacio Real next door is the largest palace in Europe. We didn’t go into it but we may do so later in the stay.

 Then it was back up Calle Arenal to Puerta del Sol, our start point, which is just a few minutes from home. The city has lots of statues especially of the Spanish kings who helped shape Madrid to the city it is. Below is Charles III in Plaza Mayor, and Philip IV who built the Royal Palace. The statue of the rearing horse was a striking technical feat in its day, that's a lot of weight to carry on two hooves.

We decided on a quiet night at home, being a little travel weary and had retired early to read. There was a knock on the door, and when I duly got there there was a housemaid who had come to turn down the bed…bugger......we probably missed out on a chocolate.

The next day was art galleries. First a walk to the Prado, about 15 minutes away, and we spent about three hours there. It was just fantastic to see all the paintings. To be honest we could have spent another three hours there, as there is just an absolute mountain of things to see. We viewed lots of El Greco, lots of Goya, who painted quite a few very ordinary things like cats fighting, dogs, dead chooks, dead pheasants, but also lots of powerful and moving religious and mythological scenes and more. He was very prolific and at times controversial. His naked Maja has pubic hair which is a bit of realism not previously seen in nude paintings, and he was accused of obscenity, so let that be a lesson to you all. His later works were painted on the walls of his house and later transcribed. These are very dark, both in colour and subject matter. He was not a well man at the time, and these were never intended for public viewing.

There were also lots of Velasquez, Titian, Rubens, Murillo, and many others. Visions of Hell was a common theme and  Bosch's Garden of Heavenly Delights, a triptych, with the first screen showing a very well-behaved Garden of Eden, the middle full of wildly debauched hedonistic people on Earth, and the third the resultant horrific Hell, points to the consequences of indulging in the pleasures of the flesh. It's quite futuristic in its imagery - Dali could have painted some of it, but it was actually painted around 1501, so some of the concepts are well ahead of their time.

 One other really striking ones was Pieter Brueghel the Elder's Triumph of Death, with hundreds of skeletons herding the living, regardless of rank - cardinals, kings, lawyers - towards a huge coffin. Lots of horrific detail and dark, spectral colours. It was painted just after the Great Plague.

Despite all the gore it is a great place to visit.

We walked then a short distance to the Naval Museum, along a tree-lined boulevard, very shady and cool in spite of the 27 degree temperature. I’d have to say this central part of Madrid is very beautiful, probably the most beautiful city I’ve been in. The buildings are uniformly grand and the parks are huge. The camera doesn’t really capture the scale very well at all.

The Naval museum was a bit of a disappointment, some fantastic displays, heaps of models and lots of stuff on the galleys and galleons of old, and displays covering right up to the present day. However the lack of English language support documentation made it pretty well just a visual experience. While a picture might be worth a thousand words, it’s pretty hard to learn anything at all from pictures. The Battle of Lepanto came up again, we found it initially in the cathedral in Lyons you may recall. As it was won by the coalition of Christian forces including many of the Iberian Kingdoms,  it occupies an important place in local naval history.

It would have been really good to get a Spanish view on the Battle of Trafalgar and some of the other battles against the old foe to the North who contested control of the oceans of the world with them for a long time. The loss at Trafalgar just about did the trick and destroyed Spanish naval power pretty well for good it seems.

The museum had the oldest existing map of the Americas, dated from 1500, drawn up by one of those involved in the Columbus expedition.

We moved on then to the Reina Sofia, the gallery which has the more modern focus. Fortunately our walk took us past the door of El Brillante, a cafe which happens to make the original bocadillo calamares. This is a squid roll, and for lunch this is just about perfection. I should have talked more to that guy back in LlaFranc about how he catches calamars, so I can make them when I get home!

Ann was keen to see Guernica, painted by Picasso at the time of Spain’s civil war in the mid 1930’s. No photos allowed so we can’t show it, but Google probably can, if you’re keen. Interesting that it was made with poor paint and poor materials; he did it for an exhibition in Paris at the request of the republican government and expected it to last for just a short length of time. Greatness is sometimes thrust onto things, and the challenge is now to make it the masterpiece last. This gallery also has lots of Salvador Dali, Oscar Dominguez, and Pablo Picasso. Andrew would have really enjoyed it, but I’m afraid I must have come up short when the genes for enjoying modern art were given out.

We then ambled home for the obligatory regroup and a drink, feet up after a day walking . We were diverted by a bit of shopping on the way and Ann is starting to talk shoes. I plan to start avoiding shopping streets!

Today did in fact start with a bit of shopping for shoes, successful in that there is a pair of sandals for Ann to take home. This required a diversion down Calle Arenal, out of the way for our intended trip,  but we then headed off for Parque del Retiro, a huge parkland area with lots of statues, monuments, exhibition buildings, lakes and ponds. The Madrilenos enjoy their parks and there were lots of people out making the most of their Saturday. Most were walking, but lots of runners and other exercisers. Parque Retiro is not a formal garden but it has lots of huge trees and open grassy areas, and plenty of fountains. Even one for the artichoke (deservedly so we feel!) The large artificial lake, now dominated by the memorial to King Alfonso XII, was built by Felipe IV in 1631. He wanted somewhere to set up mock naval battles!!

The Alfonso XII statue is a relative latecomer, and he was originally to be put there in 1898 as a defiant response after Spain was kicked out of Cuba, and lost the last of their colonies. It didn’t actually get finished until 1922.

The Palacio de Cristal was built for an exhibition in 1887 and is a bit of a “me two” in the likeness of the one in London. We tried today to get pictures which captured the grandeur of this place, but cameras don’t do it justice.

We walked past the fountains on the Paseo Del Prado where the soccer fans gather to celebrate their team’s victories. Real Madrid fans go to Fuente de la Cibeles, and Atletico go to Fuente Neptuno just down the road a bit.

Rafael’s friend commented ruefully as we went past on Thursday that Real Madrid fans get the chance to go to their fountain a bit more often than Atletico. Football team rivalries have no boundaries.

For a bit of a change, lunch today was a coffee/juice and a confectionary at the historic La Madrileno. It’s something the locals do, or perhaps it’s just the tourists but we wanted to experience it. I see no reason why the “food they eat” experiences should be limited to the savoury things like tripe, stuffed chook's head and raw sausage and the rest.

The city was busy today, in fact it was also super busy last night. We caught the Metro home at around 11 00 pm after a very pleasant evening and dinner with Lis and Joachin, sister and brother-in-law friends of ours in Auckland. It was lovely to catch up with them and get more of the local perspective on Madrid.

Saturday night we visited Casa Alberto, a restaurant that has been operating for around 150 years and does a good job of the local fare for the locals as well as the tourists. We booked for 8 30 and were lucky we did. The front part, a tapas bar, was chockers and we were sat down at the only free table in the restaurant. The streets were a bit chaotic as we walked there, with policemen directing traffic which was pretty much at a standstill. I’m sure it’s easier to direct traffic if you actually turn off the traffic lights, but it’s their city!

We walked past Plaza Sant Ana a couple of minutes from the restaurant and it was pretty busy, tables crammed with people eating and drinking.

We walked past it again three hours later and it was even busier. They dine at pretty crazy hours from a NZ perspective. (That said we actually had lunch today at about 3 00 pm and finished about 5.00, so we’ve become a bit Spanish in that regard.)

Local fare again, sweetbreads in garlic followed by more calamares in black cream for me. Just fantastic. Ann had a very nice meal of lamb chops having declined the hand of lamb option after quizzing the waiter as to what it actually was. It was lambs' feet. No complaints about the food. The décor was pure bullfighting with lots of mementos and photos around the wall.

Plaza Sol was absolutely heaving as we went through it on the way home, busier than last night, and were expecting it will be even busier tonight. The Seville playing Barcelona soccer final is on tonight, starting at 8 45pm. While the locals don’t have a direct interest, I would think that Barcelona won’t be getting much support from the Madrilenos. So if Seville wins people here will be pretty happy I suspect.

Today we hopped onto the metro and caught up with Lis and Joachin again for a trip to Jardines del Palacio de San Ilfonso (La Granja for short), in the mountains about 80 km north of the city. This is an early 18th century palace and grounds built by King Phillipe V and was a favoured hunting ground for Castilian kings. It was modelled on Versailles.

The grounds have many fountains and we were able to see four of them in action. We were very fortunate to strike this and it was a very special treat. They are huge fountains and use enormous quantities of water, which is not available for them to operate regularly. The fountains are gravity fed from a reservoir at the top of the gardens called El Mar (the sea).

There was quite a big crowd and the staff obviously enjoy the opportunity to get the fountains to play. They'd start quite gently, but then they opened them up to full noise, and then some. Most entertaining with the crowds having to run for cover.  One fountain has a jet reputed to go 45m high, but that wasn’t one of today’s players. But we did see four fountains each with their own special attributes.

After each display the crowd clapped and then we followed the official with the Spanish flag to the next display. Our morning walk in the gardens was extended to the afternoon fountain entertainment and we subsequently arrived back in Madrid for our very late lunch, after a lovely day. Joachin and Lis were very generous hosts. We look forward to seeing them in Auckland.

Segovia was today’s destination. It's a pretty town about 80 km north of the city, not far in fact from where we were yesterday. Quite high as you can see from the remnants of snow on the surrounding hills. The metro and a bus got us there pretty easily, and it’s great to have such good public transport. It certainly helps if you have, as Madrid does, more than 3 million people and lots of high density housing. That means apartment blocks that are commonly eight storeys high. I'm sure that’s part of the solution for Auckland’s problems, but I’m also sure that Auckland’s 1.4 million people don’t want another 1.9 million people living in the city. It is great to have a system delivering trains every 4 or 5 minutes though. I digress.

Segovia was settled in Roman times, and the aqueduct still survives from those days, and was still in use in the late 19^th century. It was built about 2000 years ago to bring water over a distance of about 15km to the castle which was then a Roman military base. It is now the Alcazar. The aqueduct is about 800 m long and 30 m high, constructed of 20,000 blocks of granite, and, remarkably, can still function. The Romans obviously knew something about permanent materials.

The Alcazar, built on the site of the original Roman fort, has had many influences, Moorish and then the procession of mediaeval kings and queens. This is an absolutely imposing site and the castle’s moat and walls have never been breached by siege. There are rivers and vertical cliffs on two of its three sides, and a very deep moat (now dry) on the other.

It hasn’t all been peaches and cream though, it was a prison for about 200 years, and was seriously damaged by fire in 1862. On its restoration it became a museum. It's said that Walt Disney used this castle as his iconic image familiar to us all. For our visit the central portion was scaffolded and wrapped so less glamorous, although a side shot does capture some of its fairy-tale qualities. The interior is striking with obvious Moorish influences. One room had models of all 117 of Spain's kings and queens around the room as a 'frieze'.

This is our last hilltop town for this trip, and so for quite a while. There are other things to see here including the very large and impressive cathedral. Isabel was proclaimed Queen of Castile here in 1474, but in the church that was on the site before the current Gothic style cathedral. So Segovia contributed half of the Reyes Catolica, who had a big impact on Spain in the late 1400’s. One funny story is that in medieval Spain, clashing loyalties led to many mini-civil wars. So when in the 15^th century Ferdinand and Isabel centralised authority in Spain, the nobles were required to lop their towers.

And thanks to our Rick Steve guidebook we got to taste the Segovian pastry speciality Poche Segoviano, which is a marzipan confection and very delicious.

We got back to Madrid late afternoon and did a bit of tidy up work, photos of things we wanted to have a record of. We have been fascinated by the street names many of which reflect the work of the residents of the time. And we also came across a flamenco shop. According to Lis the multi-fabric look is the choice for 2016.

Puerta del Sol, our home square, was as usual heaving. There are so many entertainers and ‘living statues. Makes for a really lively environment.

It's a really elegant city architecturally, but they work at this, in two places near us there is a facade left standing, but all behind demolished.

Choco and Vikki arrive this afternoon from Lisbon to fly home Wednesday morning. We’ll catch up for a meal tonight, then we depart tomorrow night around 10 00pm.

We’ve had a great trip, this time filling in some of the bits of Spain we missed on our 2012 visit. No doubt there’s more to do and see…………Adios Espana