Toledo

Toledo is one of the great historic cities of Spain being past capital city of both Spain and the previous Moorish regime. Having said that, since nearby Madrid took over as capital more than 400 years ago the level of action has fallen away. Now it is a tranquil day trip from the modern capital and best known for the production of steel blades, its signature dish of partridge (sometimes cooked in chocolate) and for El Greco's moonlit paintings of the old town from the hill opposite.

Burial of the Count of Orgaz, El Greco

We viewed El Greco's paintings when we were here last in 2005 and limited ourselves this time to a viewing of his masterpiece, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, which is, literally, quite a work of art. According to the guidebook the fourteenth century count did so much good work that not one but two saints came down to carry his soul to heaven.  Suffice to say that El Greco captures the scene of the soul rising up in a way that no modern camera could! Allegedly the bones of the Count were finally found in 2001, in the church under the painting. You would have thought they would have found them earlier. Not exactly an unfathomable hiding place.

Typical blend of Muslim and Christian architecture

On an evening wander the steep narrow streets afford protection from the hot sun and reveal to the visitor the many preserved medieval buildings. Our favourite was Santa Maria La Blanca which was built as a synagogue and later converted to a church having been designed in an Islamic style with beautiful arches. The building is in many ways emblematic of Toledo's cultural mixing before the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims.

Santa Maria La Blanca's Moorish arches,
built by Jews, now with Christian Cross 

A Spain where religious tolerance continued to allow learning from other cultures and the assimilation of new ideas could have been a very different place in the centuries that followed the Reconquest. But with the Inquisition and its expulsions, killings and forced conversions, sixteenth century Spain, now with Madrid as it's capital, chose a different route which ultimately led to its gradual decline. Toledo, along with those liberal ideas, was left behind and for me symbolises a huge missed opportunity for a country which has only really embraced the modern world in the last three decades.