spain day 5

  

 We jumped into cabs again, instead of the 20 minute walk up hill to get inside the gates of Toledo. Good choice, then we had energy to tour the Holy Church Cathedral and climb to the bell tower. Wow that was quite the cathedral.  One of the neatest things about it was the bell tower.  I don't remember if it houses the largest bell or largest in Europe, but it was huge and you walk right up the stairs underneath it.  Amazing.  They began building the cathedral in 1227 and it was built over the foundation of another cathedral.  It wasn't finished until 1493.  It is supported by 88 pillars and 72 vaults.

We went and saw how some jewelry was made (locally with real gold and silver leafing) and we all bought a piece.  We then went to another church (Iglesia de Santo Tome) that houses one of El Greco's paintings.  We split up because Janet and Janae wanted to see the Jewish quarter and temple and we went to meet up with our mom.  Mom had stayed to rest for a bit at the hotel and met up with us around lunch.  We stopped and got churros that you dipped in warm chocolate pudding.  Different, but good.  I may prefer our cinnamon coated churros, hmmm.  We then wandered around some more and did some shopping and on our way to the bus we picked up some Flamenco dancers made by Lladro.  That's where all of our money went.  And everyone bought a few scarves.

 We were then on the road to Segovia.  We arrived and found our awesome hotel Infanta Isabel (favorite on the trip) was right in the main square sitting across from the Cathedral of Segovia also known as Santa Maria and St. Frutos Cathedral.  We wandered around and then ate at a restaurant that served a traditional dish of pig.  Kathryn's still had the little leg and hoof on it.  Totally grossing Stacie out.  We returned to our cool hotel with balconies overlooking the Cathedral and town square/plaza mayor.

spain day 4

 On the road again.  We had our 9 am breakfast as usual and then checked out around 10am and got going in our traveling van.  We are on our way to Toledo and we stopped in Caceres to walk through a walled town (which has been built and torn down a few times since 78 BC & if I remember right at one time the Roman occupied it).  We had a wonderful time walking around.  We then headed to another town (forgot the name) to see some ceramics, but it wasn't cool pottery like we thought it might be so we got back on the road.  We arrived around 5 in Toledo and got checked in and then took a cab up to the Holy Church Cathedral.  When we got up there we found out that they were celebrating the artist El Greco, who painted the 12 apostles.  He passed away 400 years ago on April 7.  The church was closed so we walked around the town.  It too was a walled town and it sat on top of a hill.  We did some shopping and ate some rice dishes that Kathryn will have to remind me the name of...  Was it our first night of not eating tapas?  In a way part of the town was like a mall, there were lots of shops.  We then caught a bus down the hill and were at our hotel before we knew it.