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| Toledo, Spain |
Another day in Spain and our last full day in Madrid. Today my roommates and myself missed our wakeup call and overslept through breakfast, which was actually kind of nice since I've been pretty tired at some points during the trip and luckily we were able to grab a few things to bring with us on the go. But besides the sleeping perk, today's morning routine became a rushed 5 minute hustle in our rooms to get ready, a rush to put as many bread products as possible on a napkin, and a fast jog to the bus, which we took to Toledo, the old capital of Spain.
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| Streets of Toledo |
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| Outside the first museum we stopped at |
When we arrived in Toledo after an hour bus ride we made our first stop at a museum close by. The museum held some more famous artists including El Greco, where we saw one of his famous paintings, "La Inmaculada Concepción." And by the way, I was allowed to take pictures in this museum so nobody can get me in trouble for this one! It took us about an hour or so to go through the whole museum, where we saw everything from old sculptures, to paintings, to tapestries (some of which took people their whole lives to complete).
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| El Greco's La Inmaculada Concepción |
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| A small garden and fountain within the museum outside |
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| Tapestry |
Once we finished our tour through the museum we went over to the Santo Tomé Church where El Greco's "El entierro del Conde de Orgaz" (considered the third most important painting in the world) was framed. I was not supposed to take pictures of this one either, so excuse the blurriness and don't tell anybody.
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| El Greco's El entierro del Conde de Orgaz (click for a better image) |
After my stealthy moves I tried to put on in the Santo Tomé Church, we went to a jewelry store to kill time before we went to lunch. Unfortunately I couldn't help myself and saw a necklace I really liked so I got it for myself to add to the gold piece I have already. I guess I had to get something while I'm here, but oddly enough I'm not as interested in buying stuff here unless it's one of a kind or vintage.
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| New necklace |
Once the time came around, we made our way to lunch, which was good for the most part and my friend, Connor Scagnelli, and myself tried a famous local pork dish, which was pretty good. Besides that I had a small dish of spaghetti and shrimp as a small course and salmon as an entrée.
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| Connor Scagnelli |
When lunch was finished, our tour guide led us around Toledo a bit and through the narrow streets, which a lot of us wanted to see while we were here.
We made our way through the streets and finally ended up at a famous Cathedral in Toledo. Unfortunately I didn't capture any photos inside, but the architecture was amazing. Here's a website with a few photos found on the right hand side of the webpage taken inside the Cathedral that I was not able to get -
click here. An interesting fact that our tour guide told us too was that this Cathedral was the only one in the world with a skylight.
The Cathedral was our last major stop on our trip to Toledo and we returned to the square to do a little bit of shopping (though there wasn't really anything at all) and when we were finished we got back on the bus to head back to our hotel.
We were able to relax for a little bit while we were back, but only for about an hour until we went out for our final dinner in Madrid. To end our short visit to Madrid, we were treated with the famous Spanish dish called, Paella. I've had Paella before in the United States, but tonight was honestly one of the best dishes I've ever had of the meal, which I guess would make sense since it's a Spanish dish and I'm in Spain. Check out the picture below of the meal:
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Paella
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And that capped off our last night in Madrid. Overall it was a pretty mellow trip to the city, and of course I plan on returning to experience the bigger city life within Madrid in the future, but it was a good first experience for sure. Tomorrow we'll be heading off to Salamanca where I'll be staying with my friend Manu and his family. For now I need to get some sleep. Goodnight to everyone reading on TKFV!
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