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To finish up my 'stuff I want to do while in Madrid' (its a short list) I visited Toledo. Conveniently the hostel had a shuttle van going there so it saved me figuring out the train system again as the trains to Toledo leave from a different place to the trains to Segovia.
While Segovia is elements of Roman meets Walt Disney and a certain quaintness about it, Toledo is an old Moorish town on crack. For one, its huge. The streets are cobbled and windy. It takes seconds to get lost and hours to get found (not kidding about that-one wrong turn, a walk up a hill and all of sudden I had no freaking idea where I was, tracing steps seemed to put me in circles and my map would have had a better use as a pirate hat). You need to find the city walls or the cathedral as a point of orientation. Just dont mix up 'the' cathedral with the 30 others in the vicinity (tip-look for a ticket office and a queue).
After being found I then found a resturant and gave menu of the day a go (all the rage in Spain and often a good bet that the food will be okay-thus far I have been underwhelmed by Spanish food-Ive had average paella, good red wine, bad mushrooms and jamon and other food I cannot recall, so nothing has really stood out-I have been spoilt on this trip with food which has raised my expectations and I also had some fantastic food in Portugal which I expected in Spain-cheese, chorizo etc). It wasnt too bad.
I decided to forgo entry into the Cathedral, outside was sufficient, it was pricey (especially for a church) and I have seen so many its getting ridiculous. I did however visit Santa Cruz Museum (which was free!!!!). And well worth it (actually I eouldve paid money to visit). There was a collection of painted tiles, statues, paintings and pottery. One exhibition showed 'art' from prehistoric times, through to ancient, classical and to now (complete with seemingly hundreds of virgin mary's and son-they must have been sick of posing for paintings.....).
One other one tried to explain the difference between different styles of painting (ie expressionism, futurism, cubism, realism....etc etc) and then would use a painting from a Spanish Artist to explain. Brilliant for someone like me who knows little about art after about the 5th centuary (ask me about ancient pottery techniques and frescos instead).
After returning to Madrid I visited one of the large parks in Madrid. This one had the Crystal palace (think huge greenhouse, although empty of plants). There was also a huge lake flanked by monuments where people hire row boats and row amongst the ducks. There were some interesting rowing techniques, from the classic forward row, to the double out of time rowers who appeared to go in circles. I was hanging out with a couple of girls from Ireland and on the way back to the hostel they mentioned a Living wall that I had to see. Yip its like someone planted an entire garden on a wall!
As a final florish to Madrid I saw a Flaminco show. Not one of those flashy ones in a restaurant but one in a basement of a building, with a singer, guitarist and dancer. It was beautiful. The style of dancing was unexpected (I hadnt actually seen proper flaminco dancing before but assumed it was like tango-its not at all). The raw emotion and passion is definately portrayed theough the dancer and music. It was a fitting end for Madrid.
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