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Saturday, June 06, 2009 - 15:38 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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Toledo Ho

5 June



N.B. Will be sleeping at a Madrid airport tomorrow night awaiting a morning flight to London, so don't expect updates for a while.

Today: Two very sweet apple tarts [1] as a pick-me-up breakfast (after last night's six-Oreos-for-an-Euro), and a morning visit to the bullfighting arena, Plaza de Toros [2]. Fortune was not on our side once again, as we couldn't locate the museum within. There wasn't much for it but to cut our losses and head for the bus station for a 45 minute ride out to Toledo, Spain's ancient capital. The 12:30 coach stopped some distance from the historic centre of Toledo, and we ended up trudging uphill only to discover banks of elevators awaiting more discerning visitors.

Toledo has, of course, the obligatory cathedral and fort, which we skipped (the latter was under renovation anyway). Our first concern was lunch, and we went for the one Euro (now actually 1.20 Euros [3]) "very filling meat sandwiches" recommended by the guidebook (perhaps that's why the price increased).

Alvin confidently ordered two of them, leading us to follow blindly, and the storeowner promptly proceeded to cut a huge baguette in half, then lengthwise, and stuff it with assorted meat and cheese - which makes a single bocata [4]. We struggled bravely to consume the certainly very filling meal on the doorstep of a closed establishment, and ended up lugging three-and-a-bit bocatas for the remainder of the day.

We proceeded in an anticlockwise direction around the small town centre, ringed by the river Rio Tajo. First stop was the Sinagoga de Santa Maria La Blanca, a Jewish synagogue that currently hosts a religiously-themed art exhibition, with many pieces in red pencil. Photography was, alas, banned inside. Having seen one synagogue, we felt able to skip the other (Sinagoga de El Tránsito) south of the first, and also passed by the slightly underwhelming San Tome Church.


San Martin Sights (photo credit: selwyn)

The many metalwork (which Toledo is famed for) shops dotted around the town were in my opinion as good as the actual attractions, with their signature Damascene technique that produces images or patterns in striking bright gold on a black steel background. Apparently, many of the impressively complicated works are handmade, and one owner was kind enough to give a short demonstration [5]. Their true expertise is probably blades [6], but good luck trying to get one of those babies back to Singapore.

More random encounters were to come, as an elderly European lady tried to speak to us at a bus stop, and from what little we could gather she wanted to get to the train station (which we had no idea how to). An Asian couple there offered to take her off our hands, and upon asking where we were from said that they "thought so". Are Singaporeans that easily spotted?

An Indian guy standing at the doorway of Lladró, a high-end porcelain shop, then helped us with directions, and we ended up having a rather long chat with him, with the topic straying from nationalities (few Singaporeans, but many Chinese, Japanese and Koreans in these parts), to sport (do we watch cricket?) and other stuff (he got here after a Spanish pal applied for a visa on his behalf). Not that he had much to do otherwise - with most of his wares costing hundreds of Euros, up to a staggering 120000 Euros (!) [7], I doubt there are many walk-in customers. Heck, the place could probably pass as a museum.

Not that all the people we met were as nice. We had a run-in in the morning with a touristy-looking fellow who claimed to be from Senegal, would be in town for only a few hours, and needed to find a bank. After shaking our hands heartily, he showed us a bill from some country, then requested out of nowhere to look at European currency. Slightly wiser, we pretended not to have any notes on us, whereby he walked away without another word. Suspicious!

Rounding the cathedral, we eyeballed Toledo's Alcázar while looking out for reasonably-priced eats, especially the partridge that was highly praised by the guidebook. Sadly, a concurrence of the two wants wasn't found. Checked into the Museo de Santa Cruz about an hour before closing time (6:30 p.m.) for a free exhibition, during which it began to rain in Spain (and not even on the plains) for the first time. Further encouraged by the bitterly cold winds, we ducked into the nearest restaurant, where I sampled their Paella del Senorita, a seafood rice dish with squid, prawns and mussels [8]. Tasty if slightly dear at 11 Euros, but then I've supposedly not been spending enough.

Dinner took us until almost eight (though the sky looked as if it was three, which takes some getting used to), and after a final walk [9, some flag-covered building] to view the Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz (a historic mosque) that turned out to be also under renovation, we got the 8:30 coach back to Madrid and retired straight after that.



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