Toledo Part 3

Ok full disclosure. I took over 300 photos of Toledo and there are more that I want to share (in this post) before I get to the Da Vinci exhibit. I figure that most of you come for either the updates on my adventures, or to see pictures of Spain, since that is what I mostly post. If that is not the case let me know. 

Today is Good Friday "Viernes Santo" which means that it is a four day weekend for most people here in Spain. My husband and I stayed home most of yesterday because the rain has finally come to Madrid! Since it was raining outside, and most of the indoor places to go were closed for the holiday, we stayed in.But we did go out to dinner at a very nice Asian place near our house. We rarely go out to dinner in Spain because, in Spain, early dinner (for the old people) start at 9pm, which is when we went. Haha.

While we were at dinner it occurred to me that one year ago (probably at that exact time) we had just gotten back to Durham from Barcelona. Meaning that one year ago today started the "7 weeks of hell", or, our mad dash out of the country. I am glad that I do not have to repeat that time ever again! This also means that in seven weeks I will have been here a year. Sometimes it is really hard to believe that I have been in my country for almost a year.

As I am writing this hail is falling from the sky, so we might not go explore the gardens of Madrid today either.

Toledo. 

This street is a good example of the town. Steep medieval streets with the building crowded close together and lots and lots of decoration. I love the gold colored building in the background, I am thinking of doing a coffee table book, The Golden Houses of Spain", haha I already have several pictures for it.

I know that this bar is kind of corny for the tourist, but as I tourist I appreciated it.

All fo the local bakeries had this sweet bread in an eel shape, decorated, with "Toledo" on it. I have no idea why. It might be Marzipan I have found a link that states it which is alos a blog post about Toledo and Da Vinci.

Toledo is, of course, noted for it's fine Toledo Steel. The the sword or dagger are very popular shapes to find here.

The main square.

Another view.

A castle, of course, made of Marzipan. Ok actually it was part of the city wall, in fact with in about 200 ft or 150m from where we stood.

You can see the various styles of the city in this street.

So medieval!

Every building is a gem here. I fell I should point out that the place was crawling with tourist, which I have left out of the photos for aesthetic reasons. 

You can buy your own Conquistador helmet! Also a knight helmet, or a knight of Templar helmet!

A photo of a typical gift shop here. I love the black and gold etchings of this area (click to enlarge and look at the plates) and I might have bought a small clock made out of the same material.

This photo was taking to show the shield of Toledo. Which I think is dead cool.

There were these maps in the ground in front of the more importent historical areas.

Lastly, a view of the Cathedral from the back. This was taken from the entry way to the Da Vinci Exhibit. I think that I need to go to Toledo again.

Toledo - Part II

Hello everyone it is Holy week here in Spain (Semana Santa) an that luckily means that I have an unexpected day off. It is raining off and and on and we are expecting thunderstorms later in the day. What better time to bring you more pictures of Toledo?

We had to walk across a bridge into the town from the train station, and I just had to take a picture of this. It looks like something you can find in the SW of the States, you know, if you ignore the medieval wall in the background, and the Spanish road signs.

The walk across the bridge brought us some amazing views. That big building is the Armory museum, and it looks impressive up there on the hill. 

Here is an aside to mention the hills. They are San Francisco steep, the whole town is built on an hill!

There was a view of a prettier bridge then ours in the midst of a cañon that made my heart anche for Colorado. We got to cross that bridge on the way back, it is definitely medeveil. We sat for a bit on the left hand side thinking about the medieval guards that had to sit there to guard the city.

As an American, these medieval walls are things of fairytales to me. I have yet to get tired of seeing them juxtaposed against the modern Spanish lifestyle.

A photo to show just how steep the streets are.

Another view to show how modern and old go together here. If you click to enlarge the picture you see typical apartment buildings in the back. Can I just say I am madly in love with the Spanish tile roof? I love it madly in every form that I have seen.

I choose this shoot because it shows that this wall has been repaired, the gardian cross, and if you make it bigger you can get an idea of how thick the wall actually is.

You can see the strong Moorish influence all over the city.

Especially in this Mosque, HAHA.

Those little arches behind the scaffolding are painted like the Alhambra something that is on my wish list to see.

We paid the 2.5€ to get in, and got to see some vary old paintings in this tiny church.

I am going to do at least one more post about this day trip to Toledo. One of the things that we got to see was an Leonardo DaVinci Exhibit where they had reconstructed some of his ideas. It was vary fascinating and they let us take pictures!

Toledo train station

Saturday I went to Toledo, finally. I have been here for over 10 months and I had yet to see "one of the jewels of Spain".

As usual I have taken a lot of pictures and will probably spread out this visit over many posts.

The first thing we really saw of Toledo (especially me since I was looking out of the window on the side of the train facing away from the town) was the train station.

It was a good start. This has to be one of the prettiest train stations I have ever been in.

Built in 1919 this train station replaced an older, more utilitarian building.

It looks as though the only trains are to Madrid. Which kind of makes sense as Toledo is one of the places that tourist come to Madrid to see. Even though Toledo is in the providence of Castilla y la Mancha and not the providence of Madrid. This was also my first time in Castilla y la Mancha!

Look the old ticket windows were replaced with stained glass! So cute!

Th train station has an impressive little garden (hard to photographic because of the fence).

This was built in a neomudéjar (new Morish?) style. Do you see the green columns? Lovely.

More pictures and adventures to come.

Aztec mitts

I love and miss all things Southwest, so occasionally  I go on designing sprees. I knitted these while I was sick. I was sick for a week and these kept me entertained. 

What I had forgotten was just how much work I had put into the wool. I have no pictures of the yarn after it was spun. But the lower picture tells the story of the wool. This wool was white BFL. First I mixed food dyes and tested them on some white yarn (that you can see in the center. Then I dyed the four different colors and carded them together to create different sets of colors (also shown in picture). Then I spun the wool long draw, and put it away in storage for a while.

I now live in Madrid, and a byproduct of living here means that all of my notebooks are graph paper. It is very hard to get lined paper here. So I had been fooling around with grafting out colorwork designs while I waited in my job. I combined those doodle charts, along with some of the birds from the Andean mittens from Folk Mittens and I got these mitts.

Project notes. CO 60 Stiches, everything devisable by 5 except birds, which are 59 sts. Start the birds with the thumb and use one st for the gusset. The thumb was increased to 17 sts.

Salamanca the third

Here is a view of the park across from our hotel. Just look at how many benches there are! Also for those of you ever wondering, when I had my doubts about moving to Europe, it was partly due to the fact that I thought that they did this to trees all over. They do not do that in Madrid thanks goodness, but they trim the trees heavily in Barcelona.

A quiet little side street, with charming walls.

Everything looks like a castle!

 Ok so, Salamanca is known for a frog. It is a very famous frog. You see it below.

The reason that it is so famous, is because they have made it a game to spot this frog in amongst the detail that this wall holds. (Click to enlarge.) See if you can find the frog there. This is part of the University.

A Roman bridge, still in use.

I LOVE the side streets here.

There was a marching band performance. They were practicing for playing during Semana Santa (Easter week). I just wish I had felt better, and that it had been above 6 degrees C.

The Storks, they were everywhere, especially on top of old churches with their big nests.

 The Storks were soaring as the band was playing.

We watched for a while but eventually has to find a pharmacy and then go exchange our train ticket for an earlier one. I definitely need to go again. I hope you enjoyed the small peak into Salamanca.