Thursday, June 23, 2011

Madrid - Toledo Day 15

Today was full of SPAIN!!! The first thing we did was go on a tour of Madrid. Madrid was full of little Communities or States. Each Community was different, some were really crazy others full of residential houses. There were beautiful buildings and there were HUGE parks.

This is a new garden that is very popular, there are over 220 different plants on this building and the people who live in the building don't use the A/C or the heater because the plants control the temperature. The other building is a cultural center and has a cool design where it isn't touching the ground at first. :)

This cylinder is made out of glass and represents the bombing that happened at Madrid's major train station, just under 200 people died from the bomb and all their names are in the room under the cylinder.

This is one of the 18 gates that opens up to an amazing park located in one of the Communities we explored.

This use to be one of the main gates to get into the city. It has a beautiful flower garden in front of it.

This is a monument for one of the greatest writers in Spain. He wrote Don Quijote de la Mancha and it was the first modern novel written in Spain. It is a novel about the anti-hero instead of the hero. The author's name is Miguel Cervantes.

Our tour group in front of the monument.

This is the Royal Palace of Madrid.

Some Knights outfits.

Relaxing in the shade..it is freaking hot today!

In the garden outside the Palace.

This is my soup of Lentils that I had for lunch, it was delicious!

Mandi had some lentils and then got eggs and this salsa stuff.

This is rice pudding...nasty. Worst dessert ever.

After lunch we went to Toledo!!! This use to be the main gate to get into Toledo.

The oldest bridge in Toledo.

It's GORGEOUS!!!
The river you see surrounds Toledo and was used as a wall in the medieval ages.

This use to be a synagogue, then Spain became completely Catholic and the Muslims and Jews were kicked out. The synagogue became a shelter mostly then a historical site. In 1992 the President of Spain signed a treaty with the Jewish leaders that when ever the Jews decided to live in Toledo again they would have full control of the synagogue. But so far there are ZERO Jews living in Toledo.

The building behind Mandi is the Cathedral of Toledo. We went inside and it was A-FREAKING-MAZING!!! Definitely coming back to Toledo to go inside. The other amazing thing we got to see was a painting by El Greco, he was the fasted painter EVER because he was ambidextrous. He did a painting the is considered to be one of the best paintings in the WORLD! His paintings are all over the robe room in the Cathedral of Toledo.

Mandi is holding the herb thyme. This was thrown all over the streets this morning for the holiday. The holiday was about something religious and back hundreds of years ago when thousands of people gathered on the streets it started to get stinky, since none of them had bathed in years, maybe decades.

The entire "Old" Toledo part of the city was decorated for the occasion.

This is the picture of our group coming down from the "Old" Toledo to the "New" Toledo. Aren't they a handsome group. :)

When we got back Mandi and I went SHOPPING since our hotel is located in the center of Madrid!!! We also found a great dinner place, Pans and Company. This is the best sandwich place I have ever been to. We also went to Starbucks for juice and dessert. I got cheesecake! :)

Curfew was 11:00 tonight because we aren't leaving the hotel until 10:00 tomorrow. I hear we are going to be doing a walking tour tomorrow!!! I can't wait, I hope we get to visit some parks!! :)

3 comments:

  1. did u eat mandi's candy? Spain COOL. we love U

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  2. Mandi, have you used your allergy business cards at all?

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  3. No, Kelsey ate Mandi's candy while we were shopping. We haven't really needed the cards.

    ReplyDelete