May 4, 2023--You've Seen One, You've Seen Them All

Can I just preface this journal entry with the fact that at some point, the philosophy, "You've seen one, you've seen them all" eventually does apply to things?

Everyone in agreement?

Okay :-)

As always, I woke up to go running, although every day we have been heading out earlier and earlier so I have been getting up to run earlier and earlier which means I've also been running shorter and shorter distances :D But anyway, went running, and then at 8:30 on the dot, we had to head to the bus that would take us to Toledo (said To-LAY-doe).

Toledo is a super old Spanish city that is known for its steel works and crafts.  Its main sites are the Cathedral de Toledo, The Castle of Toledo, and I think some other stuff, but those are the two most important ones.  It's not exactly CLOSE to Alcalá de Henares, so we ended up on the bus for an hour (which I HAPPILY used to take a mid-morning nap).

Remember.  Once you've seen one, you've seen them all, okay?

The first place to visit on the docket was a Mudejar mosque that has been turned into a Christian church.  The original mosque was open air and really small and intimate with four pillars and nine alcove-dome things.  There were several different arch styles--horseshoe, regular and like, invisible or something.  And because Toledo is ANCIENT, while they were doing renovations on the mosque-turned-church, they found a SUPER old Roman road underneath.  There was this story about some king riding by the church on his horse

when the horse knelt in front of the church.  So the king and his men investigated it to find that there had been a lamp that was in there still burning after hundreds of years.  Also, one of the guys on the Camino mentioned to me that because there were color frescoes on the inside of the church, the church felt like a tourist trip and that there was no way those paintings were real.  Well, turns out he was right--the paintings had been "restored" and basically they were repainting them slowly over time.  Obviously, they are meant to look like what was covered up over the years, but like HOW accurate is the tech they are using to reproduce all that?  I don't know....

Next stop was a church-turned-museum which was funny because we didn't actually see or look at anything in the museum--we just went in, a guest professor gave us a lecture, and then we left.  One cute thing we did learn was about the man, San Cristobal (Saint Christopher).  He is often depicted on the wall of the church near the exit because he is the saint of travelers and safe passage which was good to know because we saw him and depictions of him several more times throughout the day.

Then we went to my favorite stop of the day and probably the ONLY church worth visiting, the Cathedral of Toledo which was AMAZING! Some highlights:

The Chorus.  Fun fact about Spain.  Many of their cathedrals have the chorus right in the middle which means the congregation can't actually SEE the altar; they can only hear what is going.  I mean, unless you are seated in the 30 foot area in front of the altar and between the chorus, the chorus is completely blocking your view.  So in Spanish, when we say we are going to church, we say "oir misa" which directly translated means "hear mass".  But this Chorus was IN DEPTH--every seat in the chorus had a hand carved wooden relief depicting one of each of the victories from the battle Isabel and Fernando waged to defeat the kingdom of Granada in Southern Spain.  Every seat of the chorus had specific details, and the music stands were detailed.

Another cool part was a wall depicting Mary holding the Christ child.  Right behind that wall is where the church keeps communion, or the body of Christ.  Because someone at some point wanted natural sunlight to touch the body of Christ, they literally punched a hole through the top of the cathedral so that through a small hole in the wall, sunlight could come through the top of the cathedral and always be touching the body of Christ.  

Not exactly a "small" hole

There was also a part of the Cathedral where the priests would dress for mass, and the church hired this painter (El Greco) to paint a painting for the church, but they ended up hating it (even though it was a bussin' painting, but anyway).  He had to fight super hard to get paid at all for this painting, but now he is considered one of the best painters ever.  But honestly, in this cathedral, there wasn't anywhere you could look and not see beautiful detail and artwork and majesty.

One more thing: at one point (don't ask me for names or dates because I CANNOT remember), this archbishop was buried in the cathedral, and he had a huge tomb built around him with art and statues, a name plate, et cetera.  200 years later, another archbishop was buried there, and he simply had the engraving "Back to dust and dirt thou shalt return" written on top of where he is buried.  No name, no date, no marker except for that because he basically wanted to stick it to this super proud other archbishop who has a tomb 100 feet from this guy.

This is where I started to really embrace "you've seen one, you've seen them all."  My parents said it all the time when we were growing up and we would travel to Europe.  In fact, I can't remember ever going in one church or museum with them.  I realize now that they were RIGHT!  Like, I'd been in three churches that day, and the cathedral was the only one I really vibed with...and we still had THREE HOURS left on our tour.  Next was a synagogue that had been converted into a Catholic Church.  And honestly, if I could tell you about it, I would, but I took a FAT nap sitting on the floor, leaning against a pillar instead :-) Worth it tho. (And several people in my group took the same picture of me...)

And then guess where we went?

No, no.  Guess :-)

That's right.  ANOTHER CHURCH! Technically, this one was a monastery AND the church built in honor of Isabel and Ferdinand, so I can't complain.

Isabel and Ferdinand are the power couple of all of history (I literally wrote an ENTIRE research paper just on Isabel).  So quick story.  Isabel was the second born of King Juan of Castilla and Queen Juana de Portugal.  Her oldest brother, Henry (Enrique) V inherits the throne and rules for 20 years.  He is a fine king, but he CAN'T have kids.  He even got a new wife and STILL couldn't have kids.  Then all of a sudden, his wife gets pregnant (probably by his trusted advisor if the rumors are true) and everyone is like...mmmmm, that is a little suspicious.  So Isabel is like "Yo, Henry, name me your heir, and I won't fight you for the throne, but I need to be guaranteed I get it when you die." He agrees, and he promises in return he won't marry her off to anyone she doesn't agree to marry.  Well...that doesn't last, and Henry starts trying to marry Isabel off to anyone who will take her, and she is like "NO WAY BRO!" She hears about this handsome, powerful young ruler who is already king at this point, and Isabel says, "Well, maybe I'll just see what is up with him." So they realize they want this, but Henry doesn't want that union.  Eventually, miraculously, Henry dies suddenly, and Juana his daughter isn't exactly the most politically connected, and Isabel is HUNGRY for the throne, so she seizes the opportunity, and after a small civil war, Isabel has it, uncontested.  From then on, it isn't a question who is the queen.  And until the end of her reign, she RULES her country--she rides into battle with her troops (she literally had her own armor that is on display), she rules while pregnant, she rules with and without Ferdinand.  Did she make the best decisions? I mean, she is the one who started the inquisition, and who expelled the Jews and Muslims from Spain, sooo....not always.  But she is also the one to send Columbus to America, and she creates the unified Spain we know today.  She was just this crazy amazing lady who obviously did terrible things, but what ruler didn't do terrible things, I ask you.  As rulers go, I would say she had more morals than a lot of them.  She had lines she wouldn't cross in terms of taking the throne from her brother, and ruling herself, and having control of her kingdom, and on top of that, those morals did not necessarily extend to those beneath her.

So anyway, we went to their church, and it was super beautiful and just a testament to their unity.

After that, we went shopping which was very fun.  You all know how I love to spend money on tiny things that I can add to my collection :-) I did NOT buy a Toledo sword (though I was tempted), but I did get another steel staple of the city--gold coated plates that are carved into beautiful designs (a tiny one, and machine made one) and a commemorative coin because I've got a GOOD collection of those :-)

We took the bus back to Alcalá, we took pictures, talked, and rested our feet on the way back, had dinner, did homework and went to bed!