16 May 2011 – Madrid to Toledo return (Monday)

Today we once again climbed onto a bus to take an trip to Toledo outside of Madrid.   This will involve taking the metro to the bus station (involved two lines) and a bus to Toledo station and finally a city bus up the hill to the central plaza.

Once we got to the plaza our first goal was to find the information center so we could get a map of the area and other useful touring tips.  The medieval city is situated on a hill overlooking the newer part of town and could be walked.  In the center of the plaza are small buildings that are closed up for renovations (we suspected) and it took us a bit of time to discover the information center.  What confused us is that at one corner of the plaza we found a sign for tourist information pointing on direction, so we walked that way.  At the end of the plaza going that direction we found a sign for tourist information pointing back the other way.  There was nothing between the signs.  Go figure!!!  Finally we noticed the ‘I’ for information on a building across the street no where near any of the signs.

We had a good look around at the old stone buildings that comprised this area and walked carefully on the cobbled stoned sidewalks and streets.   Helen has planned a walking route to take us through various parts of the medieval town so we could enjoy the history and designs of the buildings.  As we headed off to find our first goal, the Santa Crux Museum, we took a wrong turn and walked up to a outdoor café which Helen recognized as one recommend by Rick Steves.  It is too early for lunch (in Spain lunch does not start before 1:30 and that is an hour earlier than preferred) so we turned back after noting this location to find the museum.

The Santa Crux Museum owes its name to the building it occupies, the old hospital of Santa Cruz which was built by Cardinal Mendoza at the beginning of the 16^th century. It is considered to be one of the earliest architectural gems of the Spanish Renaissance. The beginnings of this museum dates back to the middle fo the 19^th century.   On the lower floor is the Nobel Cloister houses – a series of pieces from the Neolithic to the Renaissance all liked to funerals.  You can also see the Roman mosaic with a maritime theme which was taken from a Roman villa.  The upper floor houses the main art objects of the permanent collection including several paintings, ceramics, statues, Islamic texts, mediaeval furniture and other masterful works form the Spanish and European Renaissance.

We left the museum to head back to our lunch spot where we enjoyed an excellent repast.  We arrived at 1:20 and were told we had to wait for 10 minutes to order our lunch.  Other than that we were able to find a variety of options and an excellent meal.  The downside is that it was about 2 hours in the middle of our touring time but we did have to eat.

Our next stop was at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo.  The cathedral of Toledo is one of the three 13th century High Gothic cathedrals in Spain and is considered to be the pinnacle of the Gothic style in Spain.  It was begun in 1226 during the reign of Ferdinand III and the last Gothic contributions were made in the 15th century when, in 1493, the vaults of the central nave were finished, during the times of the Catholic Monarchs.   It was modeled after Bourges Cathedral, although its five naves plan is the consequence of the constructors' intention to cover all of the sacred space of the former city mosque with the cathedral, and of the former sahn with the cloister.  It also combines some characteristics of the Mudéjar style, mainly in the cloister, and with the presence of multi-foiled arches in the tri-forium. The spectacular incorporation of light and the structural achievements of the ambulatory vaults are some of its more remarkable aspects. It is built with white stone from Olihuelas, close to Toledo.

The city of Toledo was conquered by Alfonso VI, the king of Leon and Castile in 1085. One of the points of the capitulations that made possible the transfer of the city without bloodshed was the promise of this king to conserve and respect the buildings of learning, the customs and religion as much Muslim as the larger Mozarabic population.  Naturally, the main mosque found itself within this compromise. Shortly thereafter, the king had to depart on matters of the state, staying in charge of the city his wife Constance and the abbot of the monastery of Sahagún Bernard of Sedirac (or Bernard of Cluny), who had been elevated to the rank of archbishop of Toledo. These two, in mutual accord and taking advantage of the absence of the king, undertook an unfortunate act which, as told by the priest Mariana in his General History of Spain, was almost at the point of provoking a uprising and the ruin of the recently-conquered city.

On 25 October 1087, the archbishop (in accordance with the queen Constance) sent an armed contingent to seize the mosque by force. They proceeded to install a provisional altar and hung a bell in the minaret, following the Christian custom to cast out the filthiness of the law of Mohammed.  The priest Mariana writes that king Alfonso VI was so irritated with these events, that neither the archbishop nor the queen were able to stop him from ordering the execution of all the active participants.  Legend holds that the local Muslim populace helped restore peace, with the negotiator and faqih Abu Walid beckoning the king to be tolerant, and asserting that his fellow townsmen accepted the usurpation as legitimate.  In memory and gratitude of this gesture, the Chapter dedicated a homage to Walid and ordered for an effigy to be placed on one of the pillars in the main chapel, this way perpetuating his memory.  As a consequence of that incident, the Toledan mosque remained consecrated and converted into a Christian cathedral.

The structure of the building is greatly influenced by the French Gothic of the 13th century, but adapted to Spanish taste.  The outer naves present an odd anomaly in being a little wider than the other two. The oldest part of the temple is the sanctuary, which maintains in its architecture the original triforia that extended along the length of the naves and were removed in one of the many reforms and evolutions that the cathedral underwent.  

In the sanctuary, one encounters the double ambulatory, which is double as would correspond to a ground plan of 5 naves. This double ambulatory is of grand proportions and is enriched with architectural elements and an original vaulting. The sections of the chapel were solved with alternate plans of rectangles and triangles, which made for each chapels to be of a different size, rectangular plans being larger and triangular plans smaller. This method of distributing the sanctuary can be seen in the French cathedrals of Notre Dame in Paris, Bourges and Le Mans, the last cathedral being the most similar in appearance although the three are slender, as a whole, than the Spanish cathedral. The various reforms that were made over time altered the arrangement of some of the chapels, for example, in one case only one chapel was reconstructed in the space of three.

It is difficult to even try to describe all that we could see or the extreme wealth of this Cathedral.  Was we walked through the gallery with the pictures we were looking at original artwork from the masters hanging on the walls.  Goyas, Vandykes, etc.  We have no idea of values, but suspect several individual pictures would be valued in the multiple millions.

We finished our tour of Toledo by walking around and studying the buildings.  We finally arrived at the areas where we could have views of the city gate, the river below and see the Alcazors

 but we were not able to enter.  Across the way we could see an old historic building that looked like a monastery but I am not sure what it is.  Our tour ended as we headed back to the bus station to catch the bus back to Madrid.  We are starting to feel a bit tired since our days have been relatively early starts and we are on the go all day.  After tea and happy hour we generally walk around the city in our neighbourhood.