The Beheaded Princess

The streets of Toledo

It’s easy to fall in love with a city like Toledo. It’s beautiful, quaint, and filled to the brim with history. We spent our second day in Toledo walking, and walking and walking. Trying to fit everything we wanted to do there into one day!

I have always been fascinated by religious buildings. I love to tour them, to observe the architecture, and the customs within. Toledo is a perfect place for a person like me! We first toured the Toledo Monastery. Of all the buildings that we visited, this was my favorite. It is a working Monastery, so you can’t go through all of it, but what you can go through is incredible! The architecture is unique and breathtaking, and in the center of the monastery is a beautiful garden, that is currently bursting at the seams with brightly colored oranges.

Inside the Monastary

We also visited what my Dad called the pseudo- synagogue. It was originally built to be a synagogue, but in 1492, all Jews were ordered to leave the country and the synagogue was converted into a Christian church. It is now a museum, and is parts of it are still being excavated.

The Cathedral

The last religious building we visited was the Cathedral. It is an incredibly building! It was built back in 1227, and is gigantic! I spent an hour, walking through each part of the cathedral, and soaking up the history. If I understood correctly (and taking into account my iffy Spanish) I believe that the cathedral is 33 meters tall, signifying the 33 years of Christ’s life. You aren’t allowed to use cameras inside either the Synagogue, or the Cathedral, so you will just have take a trip to Toledo to fully appreciate the beauty inside!

Toledo is well known for creating jewelry, or other objects, containing Damasquino. There are very few people who make true damasquino left, as it is such a time consuming and labor intensive art. They begin with a black background (what I have is a quarter sized pendant) and using fine 24 karat gold string, tap the string into the black background. It is hard to explain, but amazing to watch! It is probably an art form that will die off in the next little while as all the artists are becoming old, and as I was told, no young person wants to work that hard 7 days a week!

I am enjoying experimenting new foods in Spain, and loving the fact that cheese and olives are so much cheaper! In Toledo we met a lady from Hawaii at a restaurant who shared with us some cheese called Montanes. Yum!

At the end of the day we took a tour bus around Toledo and heard historical stories of different places, and how locations got their names. It seemed to me that most of these stories were tragic! For example, there is a bridge in Toledo that is named after a princess who was beheaded when it was discovered that she was having an affair with a military man. He was forced to watch. Another story told of a woman who jumped off a bridge when her father decided to avenge her lover. My Dad’s favorite was when they said “The field to your left was used during the time when the Roman’s ruled as a circus. You can’t see it, but it was there”. :-)

The city is truly cloaked in history, and you can feel it as you walk around. It made me realize just how young the United States really is. Yes, we have history, but it is so different than the history you find in places like Toledo.