I just got back from a tour around Castilla (the Spanish provinces of Castilla La Mancha and Castilla y Leon), and it was so incredibly crammed that it seems the better part of valor to break it up into three episodes, one for each city (Toledo, Segovia, and Madrid). I was amazed by how little I repeated from when I visited Toledo and Madrid with my parents over Christmas, and my brain was going crazy from the sheer density of information presented to us by the end of the trip.
Our first day in Toledo was nice enough, at least. The only thing scheduled to do was the cathedral, and I'd seen that already, so afterwards my friend Jenny and I went looking around the sword shops trying to find her a perfect match. I wistfully thought of my grandfather, who would be really in his element here, and did my best to apply everything I'd ever learned about swords from him to help her find the best sword for her money. The one she settled on was a fantastic hand-and-a-half broadsword, a replica of the one carried by Carlos V, the first of the Hapsburg kings in Spain. I enjoyed watching her show it off, and bought myself a much more modestly priced Templar dagger--though I found myself wistfully eyeing the swords of the Catholic kings and Christopher Columbus.
That night, after a warm bath, I did something silly. As I was showering off the bath salts I was using, in the low light of the room, I reached for conditioner. I realized after a moment that it smelled strange to be conditioner, and realized I was washing my hair with body lotion. Yeah.
Our morning was packed. We walked out to where we could see the country side, and enjoyed it for a bit before our first museum of the day opened. It was the Sefardi Museum, which boasted of the best-preserved synagogue in Spain and many fascinating artifacts from the community of Sefardi Jews who lived in Spain before they were expulsed. I regretted not having taken biblical hebrew already as I peered over their texts--the Sefardi language is basically Spanish written in Hebrew characters, and seems like it would be fun to read. They also had fascinating footage on how the Jews celebrate various festivals in the Middle East.
From there we went to a beautiful Catholic monastery done in the same style as the Grand Place in Brussels. Its cloister captivated me in particular--it was absolutely gorgeous. We also saw El Greco's most famous work, El Entierro de Conde Orgaz, which has the entire Catholic religion's theology more or less in the same painting. I'm not much of a fan of El Greco, but the size of this one was impressive.
Then, after the school-sponsored visits were done with, I made the mistake of visiting the local Torture Museum. Yeah, nothing quite like that to make you sick to your stomach. It wasn't just seeing the instruments of torture themselves, but who the Inquisition used them on. Jews, gays, women, Waldenses, gnostics. . . the list goes on. Looking at a list of beliefs of so-called "Judaizers" who were sought out, tortured and killed by the Inquisition, I found more than half of them reflected in my own. I later bought a Star of David done in the local damasked style so I wouldn't forget what I'd learned, even though the impression was burned so strongly on my brain. I don't ever want to do that to anyone else. . . or forget how it happened to others who share my beliefs.
To cheer up a little from these weighty thoughts, I revisited one of the museums I'd gone to with my parents, this time taking Jenny with me. Even though I'd seen it before, it's beautiful exhibits on almost every subject from Spain in the nineteenth century captivated me. I discovered a room with a window of a beautiful view of the countryside. That was the thought I left Toledo on--the loveliness of its countryside.
I hope you all have a wonderful week, free of nausea-inducing torture museums.
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