Location: Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, España
Soul Site: Santa Iglesia Catedral Primada de Toledo (Primatial Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo)
Alimento: A slow, slow cappuccino (and marzapan/mazapán)
Highlight: Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha (Library of Castile-La Mancha)
Warning: this post has a lot of pictures, so get ready!
I went to Madrid for a few days alone after celebrating Christmas with family in the U.S. On my second day, I decided a trip to Toledo was in store. It was just a quick 30 minute journey on the high-speed train. I spent that brief ride reading a fun library book on my tiny phone screen and blasting Phoebe Bridgers into my earbuds (noise cancellation mode: on), really settling into my solitude after what I am sure you have noticed was a very social and very busy four months. I kept trying to check in with myself and see if I was lonely. Sure, in certain moments I found myself thinking that it would be really nice to rave about how delicious my breakfast was to someone or to perch on a windy rooftop with a whole posse, but boy was it nice to be on no one's schedule except my own for a little while... yeah, I kept thinking, I can and will do those things another time soon. I may be alone, by choice, but I am not feeling...
Muffled sounds broke through my check-ins and my Phoebe Bridgers. Then, some waves of a hand and a tap on the shoulder from the seat to my right. I pulled out an earbud. The woman next to me. Maybe a bit older than my parents, a checkered green and yellow sweater, frizzy blonde spirals of hair, a foldable pink phone case pressed up to the window, capturing a slow-mo video of... I glanced out at the landscape of the outskirts of Madrid speeding past...the most un-scenic scenery I think I've seen since stepping foot in this country.
"Puedes sacarme una foto?"
It took me a few moments to re-absorb Spanish, but I agreed, and I snapped a couple of photos of her, smiling giddily with a blur of grey-green nothing in the background. She thanked me and scrolled through her new photo collection; I noticed her marking a few and sending them straightaway on WhatsApp. Amused, I turned back to my book and music, only to feel another tap on my shoulder a few moments later. She asked me if there were seatbelts.
Then, again, five minutes more into the journey. Another tap. I graciously removed my earbuds again. The woman was smiling at me now, laughing as she took selfies by the window. "Soy peor que una niña chica," she yell-whispered. "Es que es mi primer viaje solo."
That paused me. Well... maybe I've crossed the ocean a few times alone, but this is my first solo trip, too.
We were, in effect, the same. Two women with frizzy blonde hair and sweaters, alone on a train to Toledo. Only a few decades separated us. So, why was I making such a concerted effort to look (a) like I was a steely Madrid local ("desperately exuding unapproachability," as Beth O'Leary said best in The No-Show) and (b) like I did this every day? Why was I growing so annoyed at the flickering green and yellow-covered arm moving around in my peripheral vision? Who was I, somewhere in there thinking I was better than this woman? Why was I so amused at her childlike wonder at speeding through these foggy fields to a place she'd never seen before? Where was my childlike wonder????
I was jarred. Then we arrived.
My long afternoon in Toledo was spent wandering through a walking itinerary thoughtfully sent to me by a former dorm resident and friend who had studied abroad in the medieval city last spring (hey, Mel!). I caught the highlights, including marzipan (mazapán in Spanish) from the famous Santo Tomé bakery (Toledo is one of a handful of European cities who claim to have invented this almondy candy), Plaza de Zocodover, and even a stroll by the Fundación where I would have lived and taken classes in the spring of my junior year if COVID had not cancelled those plans. It was the foggiest day I have ever experienced, so my view from multiple "scenic lookouts" was a vision of opaque fondant paste cloud rather than any bends of the Tagus river or ancient walls. That is, until I trekked up to the public library through packs of studying university students (which was also jarring, but I realized, I've done that! I did the work!), which is now housed in the top floors of the Alcázar palace. Hopping from library window to library window like a little kid, ecstatic to see what the sun was revealing as it crawled high into the sky, I could see Toledo's relatively gigantic Cathedral, old hospitals, a castle that is now a youth hostel. I could see everything. I felt at peace in this sunny solitude.
Pre-library: fog and sugar
The Library: a nap, much studying, and sun!
Next, I stopped at a tiny takeaway coffee shop called Il Cappuccino before my scheduled visit to said large Cathedral. Mel had recommended this spot for some quality coffee, and I was both tired from the stairs and in the mood for a less-touristy alternative to the marzipan shop, so it was a go. Signs were strung about twinkling blue lights advising caffeine seekers to go away if they were in a rush; I am an artisan: this gentleman seemed to want to make clear that you are welcome, whoever you are, but that this is not going to be a Starbuck's-speed coffee experience. So, I had plenty of time to browse the menu, for a couple dressed in coordinating black overcoats had ordered a pour over and this seemed to mean that an animated conversation about their years of struggles to source quality coffee in their own home + their Asian travel adventures was included in the price of the cup.
As I inhaled the rich smell of good espresso and pondered whether to order a cappuccino or a flat white, I noticed the decor. Past the couple of adorably elitist coffee posters and fancy filters for sale, the coffee artisan had used his very limited amount of wall and shelf space to center a wooden crucifix one one wall and a simple Nativity scene above his espresso machine. Around his neck hung, too, a wooden crucifix, just grazing his coffee-covered apron. I smiled. In a world that often feels watered down with indifferentism or ambiguous covertness in hopes to hold oneself in harmony with society (calling myself out, too), the quiet overtness of this man's faith was inspiring. He didn't need to say anything. In his unhurried smile and the deliberate way he'd curated his little shop, it was there.
It was there in the way he turned and listened to me intently as I told him in rusty Spanish that I'd received a recommendation to visit from a friend, and how I was so excited to finally see Toledo after all this time; in the way he smiled at the memory of the study abroad group and, keeping one hand expertly on the slowly-dripping shot of espresso all the time, in the way asked me questions in return. It was there in the way he checked to ensure the caramel tasted how I wanted it to, and how he kindly wished me well before moving onto the family next in the queue. And that was very cool.
Then was the Cathedral tour; I grabbed the clunky audio guide and headphones, and I do say this elevated the experience. Three highlights:
(1) El Transparente, a Baroque art piece from the early 1700s involving a window and the surrounding ceiling. It is meant to both figuratively and literally illuminate, which it did; a beam of sun lit up the blue coloring and shone onto the magnificent marble altarpiece like a flashlight. It was jaw-dropping.
Tried to capture its glory on my iPhone; only got so far... enjoy some other images from around the Cathedral, too.
(2) A set of close-up portraits in the Sacristy of the 12 Apostles' faces. Painted by artist José María Cano between 2015-2019, they are meant to dialogue with the portraits of the apostles painted in the early 1600s by El Greco that hang just above in the same room. Like much of the other religious art I have encountered this year so far, the eyes seemed to follow me. But, more, the way Cano captured their intense facial expressions with such bold, swimming color made them seem to have been painted while moving underwater.
(3) Letting myself walk through this place with the excitement of una niña chica. I let myself marvel, clomp a little too fast up to a painting that caught my eye, drop dramatically into a pew and crane my neck straight up to the ceiling in awe.
Wow.
Life is too brief to walk so purposefully with an air of hard adult-ness all of the time, I think. Of course, it is good to keep your wits about you, but it's better to drop the act. Without our various shields and chosen crutches, we are all little kids at heart. For some of us, that spirit's just buried a little deeper. But what would our days be like if we let not only others but ourselves see our childlike wonder at the small & beautiful things we experience? If we stopped thinking we are too "good" & too old to be awed by what is right in front of our eyes?
Growing in my desire to dig this awe out of me a bit more, I wrapped up my day by randomly following a gaggle of eight-year-olds and their exhausted mothers through a temporary exhibit on the history of catapults and other medieval assault weapons. For, as says the Spanish idiom that my lovely Airbnb host's friend so wisely taught me when I returned that evening, "Nunca te acostarás sin saber una cosa más".
And on the way back to Madrid, I just looked out the window.
Love,
Ellie
(You're welcome.)
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