Yesterday may have been one of the best days of my life, so far at least. Gloria's local friend, Diego, picked us up at 10:00am and drove us to Toledo, an ancient city about 44 miles south of Madrid. It was once the capital of Spain, and today is a beautiful medieval, walled city with many of the original castles, walls, and religious buildings intact. Diego has two friends in Toledo who met us for the day. We got a private tour of the town and went to a local favorite restaurant and bar. What a special visit! Nothing beats having friendly, native tour guides.

For lunch we ate at a bar/restaurant where the Toledo couple (Maria and Pepe) are friends with the owner. We had yummy tapas like deer sandwiches, potatoes stuffed with wild boar and carcamusas (veal served with tomato and peas). Honestly, it was all so good. My favorite meal in Spain thus far.

Toledo is known for its food (from hunting), marzipan and steal. In fact, some sci-fi fantasy fans might like to know that many of the swords made for the Lord of the Rings movies came from Toledo, such as Aragorn's blade. Predictably, the tourist shops were FILLED with LOTR junk, armor and tons of swords. Hard to get that back on a plane. We also saw several El Greco paintings in the main Catedral.

I had such a hard time decided which of the 50+ pictures I took to put in my blog. Here are a handful with descriptions and commentary:

Welcome to Toledo!

The city is surrounded on three-sides by a river with only two bridges to cross over. The terrain around is very rocky - a perfect place for natural protection. But just to be extra safe, a wall was built to encompass the city.

Our first stop was the Museo Sefardi. Now a Museum of Jewish culture, it was the Synagogue of El Transito, built in the 14th century.

When we entered this building, Sinagoga Santa Maria La Blanca, my first thought was, "I have never seen a white Synagogue." Well, like many buildings in Spain, what once was a synagogue or a mosque often became a Catholic church. Santa Maria was built at the end of the 12th century (with a different name, no doubt!), and became a church in 1550.

After lunch we went to yet another religious building, but this one had quite a twist! After years of disrepair, it was bought by the same Spaniard who owned the restaurant where we had lunch. Now it is a cafe during the day and dance club/bar at night. The picture above shows the bar in what was probably one of the chapel areas. In another chapel - the DJ booth! Here we got the best damn cold coffee drinks I've ever had. Mine was served in a martini glass. Cold espresso on the bottom, with something between whipped cream and cold steamed milk floating on top, with a dash of cocoa. Unbelievable! And it kept me going for the rest of the day!