Touring Toledo: Day 2

Day two of our Toledo trip was just as great. After a peaceful sleep without the loud sounds of the city, we began the day with the hotel breakfast. 

After eating toast for breakfast every day for the last month, I would have been happy with a normal hotel breakfast, but this hotel went above and beyond. There were so many options and I did not know where to begin. Coffee cakes, melons, yogurts, donuts, ham, all of the options looked so great. I decided to just go for it and stuff myself with as many great foods as I could and in the end, our table was filled with plates from everyone's successful meal. 

The Lords Supper, outside of the entrance 

Next, we headed to the cathedral of Toledo, about five minutes away from our hotel. The cathedral was obviously quite a bit smaller than the one in Sevilla, but seeing as I have not fully explored that one, this one was very impressive. Outside, there was a huge carving of the Lord's Supper. When we got inside, we learned that the cathedral was intentionally set up to resemble a cross. The whole area was dimly lit and we made our way from the bottom to the top. 

At the bottom, we were surrounded by more amazing stone carvings and an area for worship. Next, we moved to the middle where we saw enormous wooden seats for important members of the church. The seats also had carvings, mostly of mythological creatures that represented the evil that lies outside of life in the church. 

In the center was my favorite part of the cathedral, the altar. Behind where the priest stands, there were amazing golden figures that depicted several scenes from Jesus' life. It was hard to take it all in at once, but there were scenes all the way from his birth in the stable to his death on the cross at the top, near the ceiling. 

As we continued, we went into the room where important members of the church made decisions. This room was much brighter and it was covered in paintings of past cardinals of Toledo. In the room following, there was a huge mural on the ceiling along with about 20 paintings on the walls, most of which were by El Greco. 

As a whole, the trip to Toledo went really well. I got to see some breathtaking artwork in the form of architecture, paintings, sculptures, windmills, and most importantly breakfast foods.