Quixotic Toledo
Sun Herald
Sunday July 6, 2008
Steve McKenna escapes Madrid's hustle and bustle for a historic jewel in the Spanish countryside.
As we zoom on the high-speed train through the dusty plains of central Spain's Castilla-La Mancha region, I keep dipping in and out of Miguel de Cervantes's satirical novel Don Quixote. At 992 (translated) pages, I know there's as much chance of me dating Miss World as finishing it, yet it would be rude to come to this part of the world without at least familiarising myself with the storyline.It was in and around these bleak, yellow fields that Quixote, one of literature's most chivalrous but farcical country gentlemen, was crafted back in 1605.In the book, the Don, accompanied by his erudite mule-riding friend Sancho Panza, sets out on an adventure to woo a fair maiden, but achieves little apart from embroiling himself in imaginary fights with windmills that he mistakes for giants.Cervantes's character became so well known that the word quixotic bored its way into the English language as a way of describing something that borders on the unrealistic and impractical.It is fitting that Toledo, the crown jewel of this parched region, is so picturesque and other worldly that it borders on the quixotic.Toledo is a World Heritage-listed city 70 kilometres south of Madrid. I'm struck by how beautiful it looks - and strangely familiar - when I first lay eyes on it.Bordered to the south by the snaking Tagus River, Toledo is an atmospheric jumble of old buildings, turrets and church spires rising high on a hilltop. It looks every inch your archetypal ancient Iberian settlement.Probably the reason why I'm feeling a tinge of deja vu is not because of Cervantes, but Domenikos Theotokopoulos. Better known as El Greco (the Greek), he was an artist who emigrated from Crete in the 1570s and fell in love with this part of Spain.Although he was principally an oil painter of vivid religious art, he was also a fine landscape artist and two of his best and most widely publicised pieces of work are based on the Toledo panorama.One is in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the other is in Toledo's El Greco Museum where I'm about to head, escaping the relentless heat, sticking to the shaded parts of the walled city's narrow cobbled streets.The compact museum contains about 20 of El Greco's works, but apart from the famously brooding View And Plan Of Toledo, it's not particularly memorable.There are other spots around the city that possess some more impressive collections, particularly the grand cathedral. In a building full of work by Spanish artistic luminaries such as Diego Velazquez and Francisco Goya and which possesses some truly fabulous ceiling frescos, El Greco's Disrobing Of Christ is the most talked about and controversial.Completed in 1579, it features Jesus clad in a bright red garment, surrounded by a jostling crowd on his way to be crucified. Much of the furore concerned El Greco's decision to place the tormentors higher than the head of Christ, a cultural faux-pas in those days. One critic was no less than the reigning monarch, King Philip II. Although he never contributed anything else to the cathedral, El Greco managed to build a fan base that included an influential circle of priests and scholars who were devoted to his brand of art, which they thought displayed a spiritual yearning towards heaven.Most of the population of the day believed in spirits, visions and angels and saw life on Earth as a piffling stepping-stone on the way to paradise, hence their dedication to El Greco's imaginative, almost fantastical offerings.Probably the best example of this was The Burial Of The Count Of Orgaz (1588), which shows two saints descending from heaven to bring the count up to the skies. It is widely regarded as his most outstanding work.The original is housed in the Santo Tome Church, which attracts lengthy queues. It's worth the wait, though, and when you stand there admiring the canvas, it's hard to understand how El Greco was ever criticised for his supposed lack of piety.Despite his wonderful gift for ecclesiastical depictions, he just wasn't conventionally religious enough for some sticklers - not least the king. This, after all, was a time when religion, in the form of the Catholic Church, had a vice-like grip on Spanish life. The Inquisition was in full force and Jews and Muslims were banished to faraway lands, while Protestantism was brutally nullified by the "pure" form of Christianity governing the Iberian Peninsula.Toledo was known as the holy heart of Spain and anyone wavering in their fervent Catholic beliefs was shunned - or worse.The sad irony is that just a few centuries earlier, when the Moors ruled the region between the 8th and 11th centuries, Toledo was a paragon of peace and religious co-existence.Muslims, Jews and Christians lived side by side and everyone was free to worship whatever they pleased. Testament to this is the fact that among the city's mix of monasteries, convents and churches are two synagogues and a mosque.Besides the Catholics and Muslims, a throng of other conquerors and communities have ruled Toledo over the years. There is also architecture dating back to eras of the Romans and Visigoths, not least the Alcazar, a massive stone fortification which was founded in the third century.Toledo forged a reputation down the years for creating the finest steel blades in Europe, and swordsmen and quill-cutters flocked here.Today Toledo is very much a city that knows it's on to a tourist winner. I found it much busier than that other gem of the central Spanish countryside, Segovia, which still retains a languid feel. Toledo is more in-your-face, possibly because of the glut of souvenir shops that are spread around its often-claustrophobic streets.But while certain parts of Toledo are rather tacky and the summer air is unquestionably sticky, there's no doubt that it's one of Spain's must-sees.TRIP NOTES* Getting there Air France (www.airfrance.com.au) flies from Sydney to Madrid via Paris and Hong Kong or Singapore. Toledo is 80kilometres south of Madrid. A one-way ticket on the high-speed train is EUR9 ($15). For timetables and reservations, go to www.renfe.es.* Further information See www.go-toledo.com for details on accommodation, restaurants and museums.
© 2008 Sun Herald