Days 10-12, Spain: Toledo, Madrid (Part II)

Toledo

From Cuenca, my family, my brother’s girlfriend Cecilia, and my friend Nathan drove to Toledo, a town south of Madrid. The drive was relatively quick, and the day started off leisurely. As we drove into the city, it was pretty obvious why Toledo was an UNESCO World Heritage Site – the medieval town was perched on a hill, was a former capital of the Spanish Empire, and had a mix of Christian, Jewish, and Moorish building. Walking around, I felt like I was brought back to the Medieval ages, and was tempted to purchase a sword from one of the many medieval stores. Too bad I would have to carry it for 1.5 more months. There were many cathedrals, convents, churches, synagogues spread out over the town and I soaked it all in. Didn’t go in all of them, but a few were intriguing enough for me to go into. Remind you, this was the 10th day of our trip and by now we’d seen about 6-8 grand cathedrals already. More importantly for a cathedral-ed out person like I, we had some good paella for lunch. I had a black paella, meaning there was squid ink on it, which adds an interesting seafood-y taste to the paella and was quite good.

That night was a disaster. We arrived at a hotel situated in between Madrid and Toledo that we had booked the day before only to find that they didn’t get our reservation. We basically stayed in the hotel lobby from 8pm – 1am waiting for no-show rooms. Sucked horribly, but at least we got a few hours of sleep and a free dinner I suppose.

Black Paella – tastes similar, but if you like squid ink (unexplainable texture), it’s damn good. I like squid ink.

The BIG cathedral of Toledo. I tried walking back as far as possible to take a picture of the whole thing, but it was impossible.

El Greco’s The Burial of Count Orgaz in one of the churches. Good thing I’d taken an art history class 2 yrs ago otherwise I would’ve just dismissed it as a weird and dark painting. It’s much more awe-inspiring in person than in a textbook.

Maybe I should’ve gotten one.

Madrid (Part II)

After a horrible night at the hotel, the group headed back to Madrid to return our beast of a car and to rest before everyone would leave Nathan and I to ourselves to travel. Old Madrid was old news to us so we didn’t spend too much time there. My parents, Nathan and I went to the Prado Museum, while my bro and Cecilia went to a bull fight. The Prado is probably the most famous museum in Spain with loads of famous Spanish, Italian, and Dutch art. Excuse my ignorance, but I’d never heard of it – although at least I knew some of the pieces and could identify the eras and origins of the artworks, all skills I had picked up from art history class. That night we had some great Spanish food in the area called Chueca – the group shared so everyone got to try the food.

The next day, my brother and Cecilia left, and my parents, Nathan and I walked around the big park in Madrid, Parque del Retiro. I’d been there a long time ago, and coming back I enjoyed it a lot more. We strolled around the park for almost 2 hours before having lunch. That afternoon, we all took a siesta. Nathan and I went to a phone store so that he could pick up a phone which would receive calls cheaply in Spain. 1 bar phone was for 19 Euros, and 2 bar phones were for 20 Euros, each with 6 Euros of credit. Obviously Nathan got 2 phones.

That night, we had a good dinner outside and headed to a flamenco show. Dinner was great – I finally ordered the cochinillo de asado, roasted pork. And the flamenco show was fantastic – to me it’s like a step team performance with guitar and vocals all mixed together. Powerful stuff.

My parents went back to their hotel and Nathan and I said goodbye to them, meaning that our backpacking trip had began.

Puppet show in the park. Kids loved it.

Sweet building in the park.

Cochinillo de Asado - Good lord it was good.

Flamenco

Next Up? Lisbon, Portugal