May 2 - Saturday
Putting Zaragoza in the rear view mirror, by 11 AM It was off southwest to Cuenca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. Our primary interest was in seeing the Cuenca Cathedral and the Hanging Houses constructed above sheer cliff faces overlooking the Huecar River gorge. Must take a strong faith to sleep in such abodes day after day. Their balconies extend over....nothing at all.
A walkway to bring tourists from one side to the other.
Again a mild day of clear blue with puffy white clouds scattered about. As hoped, traffic was virtually nil, both on main motorways and on the scenic back roads before reaching Cuenca.
After our look-see, back on the road for the final 197 km to Toledo. Our hotel is located right outside the Gate of Bisagra, entrance to the old city, which is built on a high hill surrounded on three sides by a deep gorge formed by the river Tagus. The hotel is the antique home of an Austrian duchess, a former Queen of Spain - a home fortunately with updated innards with a bidet in each bathroom and the omnipresent WiFi.
We spent 3 hours after arrival walking to the center of the old city to get our bearing and grab some tapas and a glass of wine at a sidewalk cafe.
The view of the castle lit up at night from our window:
And...the usual tourist trolley:
Tomorrow begins the real day of walking as far as our shoe leather takes us, The cathedral costs 8 Euros to enter, but it's acclaimed extravagance in all respects as one of the finest in Spain makes quibbling over price seem churlish. Perhaps though, it being Sunday, we can pass as worshippers and snare a freebie.
May 3 - Sunday
Our three hour "get our bearings" foray into part of Old Town Toledo yesterday didn't prepare us very well for today's more targeted effort. The Old Town shares with Venice a relatively circumscribed area, narrowly winding and often inadequately marked streets, directional signs that seem to go into hiding when most needed and natives that may, or may not, speak English.
What the Old Town definitely does not have is Venice's mostly level land and canals, but it replaces them with continual steep ups and downs paved mostly with uneven cobblestones and small river rock. You'd think that a town built on top of a hill would be sort of smoothed out by nature, or at least the first occupiers (Muslims). The modern town fathers did splurge on an escalator that is divided into 5 very long segments that affords pilgrims swift access from near the bus terminal at the base of the hill to near the top. We used it coming down yesterday and up this morning. Not very scenic views from it though, since it is encased in a concrete shell.
Nitpicking aside, our 8 hours of snooping about took us to most nooks and crannies, sites and sights. In the Santa Cruz Museum, wonderful works of art and much El Greco. There is no restricted access to even the most precious the paintings as is found at many museums, such as plexiglass shields or physical barriers. Norm got his right eyeball within three inches of El Greco's final work, his luminous masterpiece "The Assumption Oballe" to see brush strokes close up. Norm knows this stuff because of his efforts to complete a "Paint by Numbers" artwork when he was ten.
The Cathedral was as described, enormous and splendiferous in its scope and decor, although the word "decor" is way inadequate since it brings to mind Kincaid prints and knickknacks adorning someone's living room wall. Some say that all big fireworks displays are pretty much the same, so if you've seen several why bother? But that's not really true - there's always something new, or done in a different way, to give fresh pleasure. Likewise with cathedrals - the theme's the same, but the artistic interpretations are fresh from one to the other. These edifices were the Big Thing of their day, long before Disney World and Hollywood mega-mansions. Philosophical meandering aside, we had a cracking fine day and the bottle of Spanish wine with dinner wasn't so bad either. We're now considering soaking our feet in the bidet.
Waiting in line to enter the cathedral:
We watched a talented artist working on two different murals in the old town.
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