Holy Toledo!

March 3rd--It was a rainy and chilly day in Toledo, but that didn't stop us from enjoying this former capital of Spain that is located 30 minutes (by train) Southwest of Madrid. We left Madrid at 10:30 and arrived in Toledo at 11:00. We took a bus about 15 minutes into the downtown area. It dropped us off at Plaza de Zocodover, the main square. From there, we walked down the small, pebbled streets toward the Cathedral. This is one of Europe's best Cathedrals built in Spain's leading Catholic city. One of the fascinating things to look for throughout the Cathedral was the faded red hats hanging down from the ceilings. A perk that only a cardinal enjoys is to choose a burial place in the cathedral and hang his hat over that spot until the hat rots. There were several hats/burial places throughout the cathedral. After walking through this elaborate cathedral, we journeyed through more streets to locate the workshop of Mariano Zamorano. We saw many swords and knives made by him personally. Looking at his hand is a good indication that his knives are among the sharpest (as he is missing a couple of fingers). We, then, decided it was time for lunch. So, we decided on Adolfo Colleccion, a wine bar. Per Rick Steves recommendation, we basically just threw ourselves at the mercy of the waiter and decided on the specials of the day. We both had a good vegetable soup, not your typical vegetable soup though. It was like all the veggies were pureed and made into soup. Then, Mike had venison (a typical Toledo dish) and I had a pasta dish. Both were very good. The kids had pasta as well. We ended the meal with postres mazapan. Yummy! Mazapan is becoming one of our favorite things to eat around the area. After lunch, we obviously decided we need to walk some of it off because we walked a lot at that point. Toledo is full of narrow, winding roads (no "grid" system) and I think we walked most of them. It's a good thing there are all these streets since we are in the middle of potty training Austin. We've decided he has a bladder the size of a pea. Since "public" restrooms are hard to come by, we "washed off" about half a dozen walls on some of the side streets. In between Austin's many potty stops, we walked to look at Santa Tome, a chapel that holds El Greco's most beloved paintings, walked to the Simian shop where we got to see the work being done on the shiny inlaid plates, and then walked back to Plaza de Zocodover for an afternoon snack. The kids decided on ice cream, but Mike and I (of course) decided on Tarte de Mazapan. After snacking, we went to the Santa Cruz Museum. This Renaissance building was originally an orphanage and hospital, but now houses wonderful artwork. Unfortunately, the Alcazar (Spanish castle) and the El Greco's House were closed for renovations. We walked through some of the many stores and back to Plaza de Zocodover. There was a McDonald's located in the middle of this historic plaza and so we allowed the kids to eat dinner there (their first since we left the US) before heading back to the train station. We caught the 7:30 train back to Madrid, arriving at 8:00. When we got back to the train station in Madrid, we decided to buy our overnight train tickets for our trip from Barcelona to Nice in April. After our previous experience, we wanted to buy early. We went to the international desk, but apparently the lady helping us was new. The language barrier created some difficulties and she spent most of the time with a supervisor helping her. Mike kept telling her we wanted a single room (parent-and-child compartment) and she acknowledged, but after about a 30 minute process of getting our tickets, we didn't think we had the right tickets. So we went on a journey of being passed through 3 different customer service offices, before we finally found a young worker, Carlos, who spoke good English and could help us. He was finally able to explain to us that we were booked for 3 beds in a 6 person room. The other 3 beds could be occupied by anyone. While we are all about adventure, we are not about compromising safety with the kids and we are not comfortable on a sleeper train sharing a room. So, by the time we had figured all of this out, the ticket office had closed. So Mike will head back tomorrow to straighten it all out. At least we started working on it a month in advance!