Thu 20.Oct.2022
Toledo, Spain
Imagery - May 2022
October is getting on. I am settling in to Rhodes, Greece, my usual winter
hang out, and sitting on a backlog of summer pictures.
Without further ado ...
Toledo, Spain, last May.
Down by the river
Toledo is a hill town, in a loop of the Rio Tajo
The Tajo Nature Trail is part of a larger network of trans-European walking trails.
The part around Toledo makes a fine afternoon entertainment.
Crane? Egret? Who knows their water birds better than I?
Where the canyon walls are steep, the trail climbs a bit above the actual river bank.
OK - enough river trail - into the Old City!
School Crossing!
Way back in a corner of the medieval maze, a tree-shaded plaza with
a simpatico taverna.
The blazing midday Sun inspires these "linear parasols" on the medieval streets.
A classical hill town dilemma: getting all the visitors from the bus station (at the
bottom of the hill) to the medieval town, which is a hefty climb. Toledo uses escalators -
this chain of seven (count them - seven consecutive escalators!), and another near the
main plaza.
I wondered why queso manchego figured so prominently in shops and eateries here.
Eventually it registered: Toledo *is* in the province of La Mancha. This also explains
why you see a lot about Don Quixote in Toledo.
If I return to Toledo, a catapult museum just could be interesting.
(I avoided
memorials of the inquisition and various holy wars.)
Near the Puerta de Bisagra.
Sadly, the Great Covid Lockdown does not seem to have put an end to this tourist fad
of putting padlocks on railings. (One footbridge had to forcibly remove tons of padlocks, to
prevent collapse.)