Our Last Day in Spain: January 9, 2012 Part II

Now that I see the videos DO download (although it takes forever), here are more of Mr. Don's videos!

Video above taken from the garden of Sculptor Macho's residence.  It's views from the old city out over the escarpment of the River Targus, including a view of St. Martin's Bridge.

Video above is a Toledo video, but not sure of what!

Video above this is from Sculptor Macho's house.

The video above is of the Alcazar.  The Alcazar's roots go back to Arab (Moorish) times in Spain and means "fortress."  During the Civil War Franco's forces bombarded the Alcazar (which was a military academy at the time) for, I believe our guide told us, 37 days (or perhaps it was 39 days), until there was nothing left but rubble.  Many years later, the Alcazar was reconstructed over the original footprint.  Archaeologists were brought in to recover as much of the ruins as possible and these bits and pieces were incorporated into the new building project wherever it was possible to do so.  The Alcazar one sees today in Toledo is totally rebuilt, but it represents an exact a replica as far as was historically and engineering-wise possible at the time.  It makes me cry, to think of the loss, and it makes me cry to think of what the people went through to rebuild the irreplaceable once again.

After we got back to Madrid, we left the travel agency (Julia Tours, gracias!) and just up the street was the park that houses the monument to Cervantes.  We had visted it on January 6th (the day of the Feast of the Three Kings) and found it walled off with white plastic construction walls, and the plaza itself was filled with litter and generally scruffy and sad looking, which I attributed to (I hoped) celebrations the night before (the night Mr. Don and I attended the Parade in Madrid along the Paseo del Recollectos).  It mad me so sad to see it that way after my memories of such a sparkling place filled with people relaxing in the sun in October, 2002!  But when we walked toward it the evening of January 9th, a miraculous transformation had taken place!  The white plastic walls were gone!  The litter was gone!  We could see the monument to Cervantes and the backside of it as well with its wonderful fountain.  Mr. Don took much time to get photos and video.  It is a very popular site and it was hard to get "clean" shots, even near sunset, for all the tourists crawling (literally!) all over Don Quixote and Pancho!

Hypnotizing, isn't it...

Amazing this is the other side of the Cervantes monument!  No tourists were seen splashing about the fountain!  Away across the plaza  from this fountain stands the monumental but sadly, now vacant, Edificio Espana.  Before it is another splendid fountain.  I do hope there are plans afoot to redevelop the Edificio Espana.  According to this website, there is a hotel in part of the premises, but it sure didn't look to Mr. Don or I that there were any occupants in the building - which is a shame, since it has beautiful balconies and must have incomparable views of the city!

At the corner, we took a sharp right and headed down the Gran Via for a 40 minute walk toward out hostal.  Oh my, it was a long walk, indeed!

All I wanted was to get something to eat and go to bed.  My stomach was really bothering me; at least, it felt like it was my stomach, but I was hungry too.  How could I be sick to my stomach and still be hungry?  I was not familiar with the symptoms of HEARTBURN!  Little did I know...

Our Last Full Day in Spain, January 9, 2012

"Looking up" while walking down a narrow sidestreet in Toledo, Spain.  Taken by Mr. Don.  As a kid, I lived in old neighborhoods in Milwaukee where the houses were reach-out-and-touch-someone close.  Perhaps we didn't "know thyself" but we sure got to know our neighbors :)

I hope this turns out okay. I've been having problems uploading video, don't know why. If this works, it is Mr. Don's, taken inside the Cathedral at Toledo.  Unfortunately, his camera died while we were in Madrid and while he had his video camera which can take excellent stills, he had to ration his battery power because of the videos he wanted to shoot!

If I can't post them here, I will find somewhere else to do it.  In the meantime, I've called the crows to lunch -- with the new snow cover (and more expected tomorrow) they have been visiting more regularly looking for hand-outs.

How many arches can a gate have???  I count at least eight (including that last outside edge on the other side of the gate).  St. Martin's Bridge gate - old city-side. I believe Mr. Don took this photo.

What a beautiful photo of old Toledo!  Taken by Mr. Don.  I know he took this photo because I was down the slope, across from the second "tier" of greenery on the left getting ready to take a photo of a lovely "secret garden" on the other side of a wrought-iron fence...

Isn't it beautiful!  A green growing garden in January.  Yes, Madrid is warmer than we are here, but it's not tropical!  I got the answer to my question as to why these things would be growing further down the hill, when we turned a sharp corner and after clearing the building I saw the larger part of this "secret" garden on my left!  It was open to the public but we didn't stop -- we were on our way to the Synagogue of the White Virgin.  However, I noted (with a gardener's eye) that the primary exposure was to the south/southwest and with an open exposure as it had, sunlight would flood in...  Not many climates can grow oak trees and palm trees in the same garden...

Scenes from Toledo, Spain Part VIII

The House (now a Museum) of Sculptor/Artist Victorio Macho

This beautiful former private residence provides, perhaps, some of the best views of Toledo, its cliffs, hills, the ancient walls (Roman, Visigoth, Arab, Spanish) and, of course, the winding river Tagus.  The terrace garden area overlooks an incredible vista.  I, and no doubt millions of other visitors, wish they could live there for always and always.  It is the former home, and now houses the crypt and a museum of some of the works, of artist/sculptor Victorio Macho.  They are everywhere in this lovely garden - I took many photos of the views and of some of the sculptures!

We could be in Tuscany!  This is the view looking straight ahead upon entry to the inner garden courtyard.

A view over the river to the left.  Notice the ancient remaints of footings for a bridge in the water - they are, I believe, Roman.

A view of the river to the right.  This is the famous St. Martin's Bridge.

A close-up shot of the hill across the river...

Cacti plants, just below the railing.  You can see the river far below peeking through...

Scenes from Toledo, Spain Part VII

Monasterio de San Juan de Los Reyes

This church and attached monastery were constructed under the auspices of Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in the 15th century, as a future burial place.  As it turned out, they opted to be buried in Granada after the later conquest of that city.  But the Church remains in Toledo, and it is a stunning one!  The courtyard area (cloister?) of the monastery contains a beautiful garden that I remember well from our 2002 visit, but I did not remember the horrid STENCH of cat urine in 2002 that overwhelmed the place in 2012.  PEEEEEEUUUUUUUUWWWWWW!  It absolutely reeked, stank, smelled to High Heaven, and was enough to make a grown man retch.  YECH!  My guess (and it's only a guess) is that due to budget cuts under the "austerity program" imposed on the Spanish government by international lenders, the cats are still roaming about freely (as in the Parque Rentiro in Madrid, where you can't even approach parts of the park because of the stench of cat urine and spray) but the areas the cats frequent are no longer being hosed down on a regular basis.  Too damn bad!  The overwhelming, gag-me stench, was enough to totally put me off this beautiful church.  I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there!

Walking toward the entrance to the Church.

An orange tree in the cloister.  Even I know oranges don't grow in Spain in January; upon closer inspection, it could be seen that the oranges were sere and wrinkled; they'd never been picked when in season!  Still, they made a lovely sight.

Another view of the cloister garden; notice the arch on the second level.  Our guide said it is called a "Seville" arch and is known only in Spain.  You can see the obvious blending of Moorish, Gothic and Spanish elements in the architecture of this church.

One of the few interior shots I was able to get because of how the sun was angled.  The decorative stonework inside the church is simply amazing.  One could spend hours studying its intricacies!  I do not know if the pews are original; they were certainly uncomfortable!

Blurred, booooo!

Swinging around in an arc to get a photo of the altar-piece.   This is oil painted on wood.

A final unfortunately blurred shot toward the highest part of the interior.

Chains!  The outside of the Monasterio/Church.  According to legend, these chains once held prisoners held by the Muslim overlords of the city.  When the city was reconquered by the Christians in c. 1080 CE, evidently they saved the chains (why???).  The chains were added to this church by the Christian monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella some 400 years later - according to our guide, as a reminder to the local people that God had set them free from religious enslavement to the Muslims.  I had been expecting a story about Muslim captives being hung up by the chains to die and then slowly rot away. Was our guide white-washing the history of Toledo for public consumption?  Why would these chains of degradation of the Christians have been saved between c. 1080 and the early 1500's when this complex was built, to be put up on the outside of a church centuries later?  Hmmmm, is there a fishy tale in this somewhere???

Scenes from Toledo, Spain Part VI

Synagogue of the White Virgin

This is what our guide called it; online sites call it the Synagogue of St. Mary the White.  See Sacred Destinations website for further information.  Cf. Mary in Our Life: Atlas of the Names and Titles of Mary, the Mother of Jesus (book excerpt at Google). 

Our guide told us that the site was originally used as a mosque, then converted to a synagogue, and after the explusion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella, the synagogue was converted to a church where the French "White Virgin" statue that I photographed at the Cathedral was first housed for many years, before being moved to the Cathedral.  It seems likely that the sculpture of the White Virgin was housed in the former Synagogue at some point for some years, since construction on the Cathedral wasn't begun until the early 1200s CE and took about 250 years to complete, while the Synagogue was a completed building by 1203 CE (another site I read said by 1080 CE).  Our guide also told us that there had possibly been a women's gallery (on a upper level) as part of the mosque at one time, but it had been removed at some point.  There is certainly enough room for a sort of balcony gallery to have existed all around the perimeter of the building -- but history tells us that the city of Toledo was reconquered in c. 1080 CE by a Catholic monarch and so it seems doubtful that a new mosque would have been built in the city after that date; then again, I would not have thought a new synagogue would have been permitted to be built, either...

The photographs at the Sacred Destinations website put mine to shame! But I'm posting mine anyway :)

Here's the photo of the White Virgin, again, just to remind you how gorgeous she is.  It is agreed that she is of French origin, of alabaster, sculpted some time in the 12th century (the 1100s CE) and is called "White" because of the predominant color of her robes.  However, she is also known as a Black Madonna because of the darker color of her skin!  Note: Some sources cite her as 13th century, and some at late as the 15th century CE. 

No more altar-piece - I don't know why it was removed and I don't recall our guide mentioning it.  I do not understand why anyone would want to partially "wall" over those beautifully shaped "key hole" windows (Moorish) on the back wall, either.  At the time of our tour, an art exhibit was taking place.  We were asked not to photograph any of the art, and so I obediently kept my camera pointed upward!  That's where the most interesting things were, anyway.  You can't really tell from this photo, but the ceiling is fully criss-crosssed with huge wooden beams.

This is a photo of the ceiling area in the alcove to the left of the "main" alcove in the photo, above.  On the left wall is a mural that was partially uncovered (or restored) - see photo below.

This is a photo of the ceiling above the central or "main" alcove, looking at the left wall - I was fascinated by the opening next to the obviously added-much-later oriole window -- there was no similar opening on the right wall.  I may be wrong, but from this I deduced that the alcoves were also added in a later renovation - probably during its tenure as a Catholic church, chopping up what must have been a wide-open space that was only punctuated by those wonderfully-shaped windows all around the upper roofline of the original mosque and then synagogue, and on the ground level the columns supporting the beautiful arches.

A view toward the roofline.  On the left side, you can see how one of the "alcoves" was cut into the original Moorish arch and the space walled off to form the alcove.  (The same thing is visible in the alcove on the left, at the rear of the photo).

The beautiful arches; the feeling I got was like waves of the ocean, depending on where you were standing when you looked upward. 

Scenes from Toledo, Spain Part III

I had my camera out nearly the entire tour and snapped shots as we scampered up and down the streets, lanes, and alleys of Toledo, going to and coming from the various monuments and stops on the tour:

No wonder there aren't any fat residents in Toledo...

Through the maze our group goes...  The steel poles are to keep the buildngs from leaning further into the street and toward each other.

While we saw several of Del Greco's paintings on this tour, we did not go to his house.

Scenes from Toledo Spain Part II

People!

Our tour group at the Church of St. Tomas and attached Monastery.

The lady who took our photo wasn't very familiar with such things as light and shadow...
I also look very fat in this photo.  Blech!  Honestly, I have three layers on!

Our group walking down one of the many twisty-turny cobblestone side streets.  Fortunately in this
photo, we were all walking downhill!

In the gift store, featuring Damascus steel swords and Damascene works,
as well as other costly items.

Mr. Don with Don Quixote at the gift shop.  This was the better of two shots I took;
unfortunately, I didn't get Don Quixote very well, but you can see a definite resemblance in the tall, stringy figures...

Outside the restaurant where we had a not very good meal - tough beef, overcooked vegetables
in tasteless soup, and more french fries!  Everywhere, french fries!  Mr. D ordered me a bubbly (carbonated) bottle of agua
to drink with my meal.  It tasted like selzer water and was awful, but he drank his down with relish.  It gave me terrible indigestion later that night and into the next morning!  Blech!

Me, resting my weary bones in the Plaza Espana while Mr. D took countless photos of the monument to Cervantes and the fountain.  Julia Tours was just down the block, where we had gotten off the bus after a long long day.  And we still had a good 40 minute walk ahead of us to get back to our hotel...