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Entry tags:
Travelogue
Had the hotel's breakfast buffet, which was more substantial than what I think of as "continental breakfast" -- it can't be a meal in Toledo without ham and cheese -- but not as substantial as an English or American restaurant breakfast. Walked uphill (everything in Toledo is uphill, usually both ways!) to the Visigothic Museum, housed in a 13th-century Romanesque church that replaced a 10th-century mosque that replaced a 7th-century Visigothic church. The 13th-century wall paintings are impressive, as are the Visigothic archaeological finds in glass display cases throughout the building.
Then back to the Cathedral for the Palm Sunday (Domingo de las Ramas) service. They weren't letting people into the building in advance, but we eventually found the alley where people were assembling for the procession into the church. And there was a big pile of olive branches, from which people were breaking off smaller branches that they could carry and wave. Eventually some choirboys and clergy came out of the church (the former carrying palm fronds), there was a brief invocation, and the procession around to the main cathedral entrance started. Once we got inside, we found seats with a view of a TV screen (due to the cathedral's weird layout, almost nobody in the nave has line of sight to the altar) and listened to some readings and the Passion Gospel, in Spanish, before deciding we needed to leave. Had a good Chinese meal about 50m from the cathedral. Stopped at the Parroquia Mozarabe de Ss. Justa y Rufina, where there was apparently a service just ending and tables of food being set up in the street; we didn't stick around for that, but got a photo of the sign with the church's name.
Then headed northeast to Plaza Zocodover, where all the tour busses drop their passengers and therefore Ground Zero for tourist shops (even more so than the cathedral neighbordhood where our hotel is).
And northwest (and uphill) to the Mezquita Cristo de la Luz. If the name sounds strange, it was of course a mosque turned into a church in the 12th or 13th century. This one was left largely intact except for the addition of a semicircular apse.
It's adjacent to a lovely and calming garden and two gates through the (inner) medieval city wall, of which the Puerta del Sol is late 14th-century.
Then back to the hotel with a stop at the Iglesia del Salvador, which is still a functioning (fairly Baroque) church but shares space with an archaeological display about the previous mosque and pre-previous Visigothic church on the same site.
Fell asleep at the hotel until 6:30 or so. Went out looking for food, but there wasn't much appealing nearby, and the most-promising place we found had people smoking upwind of the only empty tables. So we went back to the hotel; who needs supper when we have marzipan and chocolate?
 |  |  |
Then back to the Cathedral for the Palm Sunday (Domingo de las Ramas) service. They weren't letting people into the building in advance, but we eventually found the alley where people were assembling for the procession into the church. And there was a big pile of olive branches, from which people were breaking off smaller branches that they could carry and wave. Eventually some choirboys and clergy came out of the church (the former carrying palm fronds), there was a brief invocation, and the procession around to the main cathedral entrance started. Once we got inside, we found seats with a view of a TV screen (due to the cathedral's weird layout, almost nobody in the nave has line of sight to the altar) and listened to some readings and the Passion Gospel, in Spanish, before deciding we needed to leave. Had a good Chinese meal about 50m from the cathedral. Stopped at the Parroquia Mozarabe de Ss. Justa y Rufina, where there was apparently a service just ending and tables of food being set up in the street; we didn't stick around for that, but got a photo of the sign with the church's name.
Then headed northeast to Plaza Zocodover, where all the tour busses drop their passengers and therefore Ground Zero for tourist shops (even more so than the cathedral neighbordhood where our hotel is).
And northwest (and uphill) to the Mezquita Cristo de la Luz. If the name sounds strange, it was of course a mosque turned into a church in the 12th or 13th century. This one was left largely intact except for the addition of a semicircular apse.
 |  |  |
It's adjacent to a lovely and calming garden and two gates through the (inner) medieval city wall, of which the Puerta del Sol is late 14th-century.
 |  |
Then back to the hotel with a stop at the Iglesia del Salvador, which is still a functioning (fairly Baroque) church but shares space with an archaeological display about the previous mosque and pre-previous Visigothic church on the same site.
Fell asleep at the hotel until 6:30 or so. Went out looking for food, but there wasn't much appealing nearby, and the most-promising place we found had people smoking upwind of the only empty tables. So we went back to the hotel; who needs supper when we have marzipan and chocolate?