Tuesday, September 22, 2009

La Vuelta in Toledo



Last weekend we rented a car and drove to 2 great little cities. The first was Segovia just ourside of Madrid. Segovia has an amazing castle. In fact, it's so amazing that Walt disney used it as inspiration for his Disneyland castle. Part of the original Roman aqueduct is still standing in Segovia as well. It's huge and quite remarkable. I love these tiny medevile walled cities. The streets are about 6 feet wide and curve every which way. It's amazing that you find your way out of there. Actually, if I was left to my own, I might not get out. I admit it. I'm directionally challenged.
The next town was Toledo. It's quite a bit bigger. Toledo is where swords are made and we nearly visited every sword shop in town. I am told we missed a few. But due some poor advice, we ended up not buying one there. We'll have to buy one elsewhere. It's not like they were cheap there anyway. There were a lot of pretty cool ones, though. There were all kinds of daggers, knives, anything sharp as well as all the armor that goes along with the night thing. That's what I want. I full suit of armor!
We visited their cathedral and it was enormous. Those things have carvings on top of carvings on top of carvings and all are in gold leaf as well as paintings and columns and so much stuff. It's a bit overwhelming. But on the otherhand, you can appreciate how much effort and time and talent went into creating these monolithic structures.
My favorite thing, though, was that the Tour of Spain (La Vuelta) just happened to be in Toledo on the same day. It was the last time trial and we got to see it. We were inches away from riders and it was so great. You really can appreciate how fast they are as they go flying past you. We got some great photos, though. We also hung out at the finish for awhile. It's pretty low key compared to the Tour of France, at least as far as security . You could just go right up to the riders when they had finished. One boy asked for a rider's gloves and he handed them to the boy. If I knew better Spanish you know I would have done the same thing. But I wanted his helmet. Anyway, it was really something to be there in person.

2 comments:

Janet said...

Hi, I'm just checking to see if the comments work. It's great to read about what you're doing in Spain.

Lynette Borup said...

Yeah! I finally figured it out. Thanks though. And thanks for the new email address. We'll keep in touch.