on the way to Toledo

disclaimer: same as the last one, this was written a few days ago.

Friday was a fun-filled day, in which we visited several big tourist places and arrived in Toledo. The first place to which we traveled was called La Valle de los Caídos, the Valley of the Fallen Ones. On first sight it looks amazing—there is an enormous cross rising out of the rock that can be seen for about 50 miles around. The base of the cross coincides with the dome of a cathedral carved into the mountain, excavated from the rock. The thing that’s not so amazing is that the people who excavated and built all this were the prisoners of war, the losers of the Spanish Civil War, and it is said that 900 of them died in the process, from cave-ins and accidents and so on. Nonetheless, the place itself was breathtaking. Before renovations, it was larger than the church in the Vatican—but the Pope wouldn’t come bless it until it was smaller, as nothing is allowed to be bigger than the Vatican church. The plaza in front of the church was vast, although half its previous size, and it offered really wonderful views of the surrounding countryside, which mostly consists of tree-covered mountains receding off into the distance. The inside of the church was just as spectacular, with soaring coffered ceilings cut into the very rock, tapestries on all the walls, and fantastic sculptures of angels, saints, and historical figures. The entryway to the church is wide and marble-floored, and as we walked in it was almost completely dark, through which I could dimly perceive two huge metal archangels with massive swords flanking the walkway, guarding the church. As the lights came on, I could see more and more of the probably thirty-foot ceilings of bare rock. Every few dozen feet was a niche chapel dedicated to a different saint or aspect of Mary, and atop each opening was an appropriate sculpture. All along the walls hung large tapestries depicting various Biblical or historical events pertaining to the church, and on either side of each were four or five organ pipes—I don’t know whether they were functional or not, but I believe they were. I would tell you all about the wonderful dome, but we were unable to go all the way into the church to see it because there was a Mass in progress at the time. We did get to hear the priests or cardinals chanting and singing in harmony, which was really beautiful in the lofty and echo-y space under the mountain, and I could see a little bit of the dome above the congregation. I ended up taking probably too many pictures, but I couldn’t help it, everything was so beautiful. That’s kind of a theme of my travels so far.

The rest of the morning was spent at El Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, an historic monastery that is still in use by some Franciscan monks today. The buildings cover nine acres of land, and there are about eleven miles of corridors on the inside—and this huge complex was completed in just 21 years, as compared with the 150 or 200 years it took to build a cathedral in the same century. The building, in addition to being a functioning monastery, served as sort of a summer home for the royal family of Carlos V, and some of the royal bedrooms had been preserved, complete with bedwarmers and chamber pots. There were lovely gardens with shaped hedges, and large airy rooms full of paintings. There was an excellent library with “only” 45,000 books, but the oldest was from I think the ninth century and the youngest was from the sixteenth century, and they were all of highest quality. The loveliest part of the monastery, and the part I was sorriest not to be able to photograph, was a series of wooden doors. They were all handcrafted, and they all had ridiculously intricate designs, each different color coming from a different kind of wood. I can’t even describe how delicate and exquisite they were and how much patience they must have required to set each tiny sliver in place by hand. One of them, the best one, had pictures of scholars studying in corridors with perfect one-point perspective and ribbed barrel vaults. I would have liked to spend all day there, but we had to eat sometime, so we ventured out into the town of El Escorial and found a nice little café. The waiter we had was apparently learning English, and we were apparently obviously American, so he was trying to explain things to us in English, and he was very patient when we asked about most of the items on the menu and took forever to order.

After lunch we got back on our bus and drove the rest of the way to Toledo, where we wandered around, explored the city, and had dinner. A couple other girls and I found this little hole-in-the-wall tapas place to eat, and the bartenders were probably a little annoyed with us, being loud and taking up all their seats as we were, but we had a good time, drinking sangria, trying new foods, and telling stories. We wandered around the city for a while after dinner, finding sketchy alleyways and interesting architecture, and we eventually took cabs back to the hotel and went to sleep.