Iglesias de los Jesuistas

The construction of this church began in 1629 and was finished in 1765.    It was build on the birth place of St Ildephonsus. It has a single nave with two side chapels in the crossing.  The alter from an old church is set in one of the side chapels. 

The best part of the church was that we got to climb up the bell tower and see the city sky line.

We also go to explore the length of the nave from the 2nd story where the choir would sit. Delaney and Shelby are looking out the balconies, but they are hard to see.

This is the view from the tower looking at the Azucar (on the left) and the Cathedral tower (on the right)

Cathedral Primada

We made our way up the hill and many steps to the main Toledo cathedral.  

This is the front side facing the plaza.

This is the view of the main alter.  The fancy grill work took four years to make.

This is the main alter.

This was my favorite part of the cathedral, and unique to anything else I've seen in many, many European churches that I've visited.  The circular light in the top of the picture is basically a sky light in the vaulted ceiling with paintings all around and into the opening and sculpted angels in the mouth of the opening.  Literally a light from heaven.  It faces south and gets light through the day all year.  The light shines down onto an alter that is covered in silver and gold and gleams like it's alive.  Beautiful!  I tried mightily to capture it in a photo, but failed.  

The church is quite large, with 5 aisles.  This is looking down the length of the church.  The main aisle is actually divided into the main alter area (seen above) and a separate choir area (in the middle of the church), with a little seating at the rear of the main aisle, so you can't actually see the main alter at all from the rear of the church, or even from the side aisles.  

This was another unusual piece in the church.  I"m used to seeing very darkened paintings with lots of saints in them in darkened side chapels, but this was a huge painting of a giant (St. Christopher) on one of the sanctuary walls.  You can see the size of people standing at the bottom of the picture.  He is carrying people across the river, and offers to carry the young man across the river.  The passenger gets heavier and heavier and the giant realizes he is carrying Christ and the weight of the world on his shoulders.  He is painted so large because if he is viewed by someone, it means that they will not die that day, so everyone should be able to see him easily.

This is the treasury of the cathedral.  It is made of solid gold and covered in semi precious jewels.

This is the bell tower with ten bells in it.  We climbed 200+ stairs to get to the top, and the stairs were very steep!

Inside the stairwell to the bell tower.

View of the plaza from the bell tower.

View of the painted tile work of the bell tower.

View from the bell tower.

The arched windows in the tower are the level where the bells are.

The Big bell.

Exploration of the town of Toledo

After a day full of beautiful sites and over a hundred photos, these first photos are still my favorite.  We approached the city from the ancient bridge and climbed up countless stairs and terraces until we reached the fortress (Alcazar) at the top of the hill.  Then wandered the very narrow alleys until we found the main Cathedral.  

There were a number of feral cats that we spotted throughout the city, just lounging in the sun or slinking out of our way. 

The river was surprisingly muddy, but was flowing pretty well.  Difficult to tell how deep it ran.

The Alcazar.  We thought you could go in, but we were wrong.  One part is a military history museum, which we bypassed in the end, and one is the city library.  We just walked around the outside. 

Many of the small streets were covered with cloth tarps (like on the right side) which provided an effective sun shade.  The sun was pretty hot that day.  Underneath each of the shades were mounted lanterns (electric) that each had different designs, many with colored glass.  I imagine the streets were quite charming at night when all lit up. 

A view of the bell tower of the cathedral.

Train to Toledo

On my free day I decided to head to Toledo, just outside of Madrid.  It is a UNESCO world heritage site and absolutely beautiful.  I bought tickets the day before because I had heard they sometimes sold out.  I'm glad I did, and that I explored the train station fully so I could navigate better with the group.  Since the bombings in Madrid a few years ago, they have installed increased security to board the trains.  All bags go through a scanner and only ticketed passengers can get on the platforms. (No metal detector for the people however, so it's not quite a rigorous as airport security).  The Madrid station was crazy busy.  After standing in 4 separate lines to try to get tickets, I finally stood in the right line and got them.    Then I started looking for how the platforms were arranged.  There were two levels for departures (medium and long distance), with two different security lines.  They all emptied onto the same platforms in the end, but from two different entrances.  Tickets successfully purchased and ready to head out of town.

Found this waiting area with the airplane like seats interesting.  Not nearly enough seats for everyone to be seated, but since they only call the platforms 15 or so minutes before departure, it didn't matter much.

Loved these "garr like" trains (the needle nosed fish)

The Toledo station clearly showed its Mosqarabe roots.  Very pretty little building.

It took us a little while to get oriented upon our arrival, but they were selling tourist maps and we found our location and decided on how we wanted to approach the city (by the ancient bridge over the river).

Visually impaired friendly

I've particularly noticed several things in the city that are friendly to the visually impaired.  There are beeping signals at each cross walk (not unique, but notable).  There were also displays throughout the National Archeological Museum that were for touching.  These were replicas of some of the artifacts and had Braille signage on them.

Particularly surprising was this allergy medicine that someone in the group bought that had Braille labeling on the package itself.  Look closely and you can see it.

San Francisco de Grande

Our last stop on our second day was at San Francisco de Grande, just down the street from the Cathedral.  We arrived and found the church closed up, but the sign indicated that it would reopen shortly. This was lucky for us because it was getting hot and the group was getting tired.

Front view of the church.  It was not remarkable from the outside, but quite beautiful inside.

The side view from another garden area gives more of an idea of the age of the church.  The guy who opened up the church for us was very nice and quite proud of the church.  I asked for 12 tickets in Spanish and he asked me something back.  I understood, but answered in English.  He said something further in Spanish and I again answered in English.  At that point he joked with me about understanding but not speaking Spanish.  He said I should be able to understand the guide that would lead us around the church, but I also bought a small guide book.

The front alter

The pulpits were quite beautiful.  Even in the murky lighting, the gold relief on the stone work gleamed.

This photo does not do the dome Justice.  It is the third largest cathedral dome after St Peters in Rome and another one.  It is larger than St. Paul's in London if that is a useful comparison.  Unfortunately you cannot get any higher to look at it more closely.

The guide talked about each of the different chapels around the sides of the main nave.  He spent a lot of time talking about the various famous artists and architects.  I'm more interested in the symbolism and meaning of the art, so I kind of tuned out a little, but could mostly understand him.  I particularly liked this painting.  The paintings in the space seemed well preserved and were not overly dark, as many aged paintings are.

the guide took us back behind the main alter to the sacristy where the priests robe themselves for ceremonies.  The high backed wooden benches you can see are on all the surrounding walls.  I couldn't find anything that indicated what their purpose was, so afterwards I approached the ticket guy and he explained that they were originally from the choir area in the organ loft, but had been taken out and placed back in the sacristy to be conserved.

Public Transit

Public transit in Madrid is quite good.  Our airport shuttle bus stop was very well signed, with the schedule, the stops, etc.  I showed the students how to read the time chart for the schedule.  After getting in to the central train station, we bought metro tickets and went several stops to our hostel.  There are very few human attendants in the stations to sell tickets, but the machine worked fine.  It would not take my credit card (chip required).  I really wish my bank would come into the 21st century! Cash worked fine.  We discovered that 10 rides are cheaper and you can use the card as many times as you want (for multiple people), so one person would go through, pass the card to the next person etc.  The group quickly discovered that having one person stand and swipe everyone through works very well : ). 

The metro trains are large and have a pretty smooth and quiet ride.  What I found most remarkable was how clean the stations (and tracks) were!  Trash cans every few feet and nothing on the ground or on the tracks.  This is quite a contrast to New York City or Rome, which are pretty trashy.  The streets were also remarkably clean.  In fact one member of the group noticed a tourist  accidentally drop a piece of paper and a stranger pointed it out to him and asked him to pick it up.

The metro system is so easy to navigate that several members of the group struck out on their own on the second day to go buy tickets for the bull show.

All metro trains are electric with overhead power. No worries about a third rail here.

Atocha train station

I've never seen a jungle in the middle of a train station before!  The green house works, but it is hot and humid inside, not a great feel when hauling luggage and dashing for a train.