Toledo from Ashton's Point of View

Okay so this is out of order again and Lyndsey already wrote a little bit about it but I wanted to write about all the cool stuff we saw in Toledo from my perspective.  On our way to Granada we stopped in Toledo which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of its historical importance and the presence of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic monuments that still exist today.  In most cases when one religion takes power all of the other religious monuments and architecture are destroyed.  However, this is not the case with Toledo.  One Jewish synagogue was turned into a church and therefore preserved.  Before this happened the synagogue was permitted to exist because the Jews paid taxes to the Christian monarchs.  Churches created a lot of income and they were okay with the synagogue's existence as long as they still got their money.  On one of the churches we saw there were chains hanging from the exterior.  Towards the end of the 11th century when Toledo returned to Christian rule from Islamic there were many Christian slaves released. 


As a testament to their freedom and praise to God they nailed their shackles to the outside of the church.  You can see them in the pictures above.  We went inside a monastary and there was a lot of cool architecture and artwork.

                            

Our guide told us that most of the people outside of the monastery envied the ease with which the monks lived.  They ate better, were paid more and lived more comfortable lives than the townspeople.  Because of this the sculptors would get back at them by mocking them with the marble etchings they produced in the monastary.  This picture depicts a monk

with the facial characteristics of a monkey sitting on a chamber pot!   After our guided tour we had the opportunity to go into a huge cathedral called the Santa Iglesia Catedral Primada.  We were told that it is the richest cathedral in the world.  It cost 7 euros to go in and we couldn't decide whether we wanted to pay that much for a cathedral that would probably look like every other cathedral.  I decided to go in, and I was SO glad that I did.  It was NOT just another cathedral and it was definitely worth the money.  The outside is not very impressive which I'm finding out is the case with many historical buildings, but the inside is unbelievable.  It was massive and everything was so elaborately decorated and detailed.  Gold was everywhere and there was more than you could see or take in if you spent a whole day there.  I just stood there in awe.  You couldn't take pictures inside so there are pictures of the outside below even though they don't do it justice.