We had a lie in this morning as we were shattered from yesterday… well one of us did! The forecast was up to 37 degrees which when we were at home meant we stayed in the cool for the day - here we planned a complex sightseeing route.
We had a better impression of Toledo today and took different route with less steps this time. Toledo is impressive but maybe mores from a distance. It is certainly not as attractive as Caceres as a city.
I enjoyed our first stop at the Monastery de San Juan de Los Reys. This had lovely courtyards and amazing carved creatures on all the pillars. There is a large Jewish area in the city so we also visited two synagogues. I liked the cool white arches and pillars in the Synagogue de Santa María La Blanca - it took me a while to create the feeling of emptiness by waiting for fleeting moments in between people posing for selfies by the pillars!
Several more buildings and then a stop for sandwiches in the shade of a square and feeding the sparrows scraps of crisps. Then onto the Cathedral, our last site to visit today. I expected the cathedral to be amazing and it was definitely impressive but not as many we have seen. There was no large space with unrestricted views as in other places. The best part was the number of El Greco paintings in the gallery there. I knew little about the artist before our trip but having seen his work and reading up on him, I really like his realistic style of painting and he fact that he often slips a ‘selfie’ into a painting!
We started to walk back and found a restaurant just across the bridge about five minutes from our apartment. We were deciding if it would be a good place for dinner and ended up having two chilled beers in chilled glasses to revive us. We did return later and it was very good - we were absolutely the only tourists and the food was very typical of the area. Shattered - but a good day!
