Rod and Jessica Take on Spain - Day Three!

Day Three!

Today, we decided to get an uber and go to Toledo! 

Toledo is historically known as the "City of Three Cultures" due to the significant period when Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived and worked together, leaving a lasting legacy on the city's art and architecture.  It is an incredibly hilly city! We definitely got our steps in and our legs burned by the end of the day!  The narrow, winding streets of the old town are filled with a unique mix of artistic styles, including synagogues, mosques, and churches. 

Toledo steel has been famous since ancient times for its strength and flexibility, making it ideal for swords. Just about every store we passed had swords for sale. 

The city is also very well known for its marzipan, which is a sweet made from almonds and sugar. 

You can see just how narrow the streets are here. 

We spent a lot of our time in the Toledo Cathedral, which is a massive Gothic-Mudejar cathedral. The construction of this cathedral started in 1227. It wasn't finished until 1493.  It is impressive to say the least.  There are 88 pillars and 72 vaults. We wish we would have had a guided tour so we understood what we were looking at, but it still blew us away without even having any context. 

The building behind us is the Toledo Cathedral. Just as impressive on the outside as it is on the inside!

Had to get a picture with the statues in front of yet another sword store. 

More swords.

After all of our walking, we were starving! We decided to try this little restaurant. Our waiter looked like the Spanish version of Post Malone. The food in Spain did not impress us - ever. We got really sick of most all of it!

Natalie had read that Santo Tome had the best Marzipan in Toledo, so we walked everywhere to find it. 

As was the case in most places, the ladies at the counter were rude, and the marzipan wasn't delicious at all. We found another little store with the sweetest lady giving out samples of marzipan and it won us over. We bought a couple of bars to bring home to share. 

On one of our many turns in the alleys, Scott found this cheesecake store. He bought a few to try and ended up loving it so much that he bought 6 cheesecakes for all of us to share later that night. We were cracking up!

More of the wall art I love in Europe!

Cute Natalie is just as tiny as our girls - so we laughed when we found this door that was just her size!

This is another church in Toledo - Church of San Bartolome.

The horseshoe arch is a key element of Islamic architecture. The design became strongly associated with Muslim culture in Spain after the Umayyad conquest in the 8th century.

We heard about an incredible fortress that goes all around Toledo - and with all the walking we did, you would think we would have found it, but we didn't. We did find the library though and were told that if we went to the top, we'd have a beautiful view of the city. 

They were right! It was an incredible view! Rod and I took the stairs - and there were hundreds of them. We were sweating by the time we got to the top!

We needed to cut our day short because we had dinner reservations (or so we thought) at a very famous restaurant. Matt, Scott, and Rod started looking for an uber back. There were none. No train tickets, no taxis. We were a little stressed.  Luckily, AutoOwners had taken part of our group there on a paid tour, so Rod worked his charm and asked if we could catch their bus back. They weren't thrilled, but it worked out in the end! And it was sure a lot cheaper than any other option! Oh, and it gave Rod and Matt (and Natalie and Scott and Karalee) a chance to take another good nap!

We got back to our hotel just in time to change and take off running again. We walked as fast as our feet could possibly go to make it to our dinner reservation at 6:30 . . . which actually ended up being a reservation for a tour of the restaurant. Haha! 

I got a phone call from home that needed to be taken, so we took a picture of our friends and sent them in while we walked around and talked on the phone. 

Our friends thought that the tour was so cool that they begged the guy to let Rod and I in.  He couldn't give us the full tour because they were setting up for dinner, but he did show us some of the highlights. 

The restaurant is called Botín (pronounced BO-TINE). It was founded in 1725. It holds the title of being the oldest restaurant in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It is most famous for it's roasted suckling pig, which our friends got to see, and I am not disappointed that we missed out on.

This is the wine cellar in the basement of the restaurant. The guide told us that Botín has a historical tunnel system that once led to a network around the city, with a cellar at the lowest level that was part of this passage. These secret tunnels are said to have been used by the Spanish king for easy access and were used by the public during Napoleon's conquest of Madrid.

The guy that gave us the tour did pull some strings for us and we got a table! Apparently that's not a common feat, so we felt pretty special!