Thursday was a day trip to Toledo, a fortressed medieval city built atop a mountain about 70 kilometers south of Madrid. If you ever go to Spain, you must visit it. Taking the high-speed train, the trip took less than 30 minutes.
Toledo is a maze of cobblestone streets, many no bigger than a sidewalk. This street next to the bar where I'm enjoying a cervesa would be considered one of wide streets.
What surprised me most was that Toledans drive on these narrow streets. Everyone who owns a car drives a sub-subcompact, or a scooter. How they get around without killing any of the tourists I'll never know. Several times Michelle and I had to jump into a doorway's portico in order to avoid being run over. They squeeze through the tightest of archways and roads. And if the path is a little too tight, they simply take a deep breath and drive through it anyway. A few scapes and scratches to the sides of the car, like the one above, are common.
Michelle taking in the view of the plains from one of the walls. The windmills of these plains were the ones Don Quixote tilted at.
A typical Toledo "street."
But the most amazing thing about Toledo was the cathedral. It was the first European cathedral I have experienced, and it was mind-numblingly wondrous. It's one of the top 3 Gothic cathedrals in Europe. It's the most amazing man-made thing I've ever seen. The photos and words can't do justice to the architectural achievement...the details, scale, ornamentation, artwork and treasures. But when you consider that it took almost 500 years to build it, I guess it's not so implausible. Imagine a building project started around the time of the first European settlers to America just getting it's final coat of paint today. And people bitch about how long the Big Dig is taking.
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