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The good news: it didn´t rain. The bad news: I took the wrong bus, the local stop bus that takes two hours instead o 50 minutes, and by the time I got there the sword museum had closed. I think. I wish people would stop giving me very long and comprehensive yet, to me, incomprehensible explanations every time i ask a question that could theoretically be answered in one word that I know rather than a hundred that I don´t. Same with the El Grecos. Or maybe I just didn´t find them, which is very possible.
Luckily, on the whole I prefer walking around in interesting neighborhoods and looking at amazing buildings to staying inside and looking at amazing paintings, and the old town of Toledo-- the medieval city enclosed in massive walls-- does not shut down by the afternoon. Once you´re within the walls, the roads are paved with lumpy stones the size of grapes, or the size of two or three grapes, and polished smooth by the soles of people´s shoes. These roads become more and more narrow, and more curved or angular, and the walls rise up higher, until soon it feels as if you´re in an ant farm, where you can´t see where you´re going or where you´ve been for more than fifteen paces behind or in front, and the sky is laid out in jagged strips. The walls are all red brick and gray stone, all now faded to sepia. Every now and then you turn a corner and suddenly, there´s a plaza! Or a restuarant! Or an incredible cathedral with a wedding party in session!
I began to wonder if I would ever find my way out, but since the whole thing is atop a hill, I figured if I kept heading downhill, I would eventually find the walls, and thence the outer city and bus station. This was correct, or else I would still be there. Outside of those massive walls, grass and wildlowers grew: dandelions and tiny daisies, lavender flowers with purple stripes like tiny tiger lilies, and poppies, or at least I think they were poppies, because they looked just like the California kind, but red instead of the orange I´m used to: red shading to orange in the sun, and in the shade such a pure scarlet that they burned against my eyes. Those must have been the poppies that grew in Flanders Field: red as blood.
Luckily, on the whole I prefer walking around in interesting neighborhoods and looking at amazing buildings to staying inside and looking at amazing paintings, and the old town of Toledo-- the medieval city enclosed in massive walls-- does not shut down by the afternoon. Once you´re within the walls, the roads are paved with lumpy stones the size of grapes, or the size of two or three grapes, and polished smooth by the soles of people´s shoes. These roads become more and more narrow, and more curved or angular, and the walls rise up higher, until soon it feels as if you´re in an ant farm, where you can´t see where you´re going or where you´ve been for more than fifteen paces behind or in front, and the sky is laid out in jagged strips. The walls are all red brick and gray stone, all now faded to sepia. Every now and then you turn a corner and suddenly, there´s a plaza! Or a restuarant! Or an incredible cathedral with a wedding party in session!
I began to wonder if I would ever find my way out, but since the whole thing is atop a hill, I figured if I kept heading downhill, I would eventually find the walls, and thence the outer city and bus station. This was correct, or else I would still be there. Outside of those massive walls, grass and wildlowers grew: dandelions and tiny daisies, lavender flowers with purple stripes like tiny tiger lilies, and poppies, or at least I think they were poppies, because they looked just like the California kind, but red instead of the orange I´m used to: red shading to orange in the sun, and in the shade such a pure scarlet that they burned against my eyes. Those must have been the poppies that grew in Flanders Field: red as blood.
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