Touring Toledo…

O.K., so today we spent a good deal of time in Toledo…Known as Toletum in the days of Ancient Rome, Toledo is a small city (82,500 residents) known as La Ciudad Imperial (The Imperial City), because it was where Carlos V lived with his court…It’s also known as La Ciudad de las Tres Culturas (The City of the Three Cultures) because of the historical coexistence of Muslims, Jews, and Catholics…

So, here’s a look at some of what I’ve seen today…Like I pointed out in the last post, in a lot of the places I’ve been to, photography is prohibited, so I’ll try to make some good use of Internet pics!!!!…

Well first, I have to give props to the actual city itself, which is magnificent…

Another area of interest was San Juan de los Reyes (Saint John of the Rulers [as in king and queen])…Constructed during the end of the 15th/beginning of the 16th centuries, this Franciscan monastery was built to be the resting place of Isabel I (it didn’t, though), and to commemorate Isabel’s victory in the Battle of Toro (1476) during the War of the Spanish Succesion–through which she won the Castilian throne…

…The chains on the facade were given to Isabel as a commemoration/thank you from those Catholics whom her and Fernando liberated when they “reconquered” the Moorish territory…Yes, they were actually used by the Muslims on the Catholics in thier territory…

…Interior…

…John receiving the Word of Revelation (I’m pretty sure)…

…Virgin statue…

…Views of the Garden…

…Close-up of the detail on the wall…

…Detail of the roof–Note the gargoyles in the bottom picture…

Finally, there was the Catedral de Toledo, started in 1226 and finished in 1493…It is truly the most beautiful cathedral I’ve seen so far in my young life, full of treasures–No, seriously, there’s a room full of valuable objects made of precious metals/stones, and rooms adorned with paintings by Carvaggio, Raphael, Rubens, Titian, and, of course, El Greco (he lived in Toledo, and painted for this church)…