October 26, 2021- Toledo

October 26, 2021 – Toledo
The whole day is open to do whatever we want. Carolyn and I slept late (7:30am). After breakfast we went to our room to lay out clothes for our first farewell dinner and for tomorrow. Two of our merry band of eight are leaving after the basic tour. The rest of us will be flying to Bilbao to spend a week touring Spain’s north coast.
The couple returning to the U.S.A. Tomorrow have to take a car at 6:30am to the Madrid Airport. They had their Covid-19 PCR test yesterday and were negative.
The rest of us plus Sira, our leader, will take a van at 7am to Madrid Airport for our 11:50am flight to Bilbao. My understanding is that traffic can be horrible so we need to leave that early.
Back to today, at 10am we walked down to the Cathedral. It was built starting in 1226 and finished in 1493. Right when I thought I’d seen the most beautiful Cathedral, I visited Toledo. It replaced a Mosque which had replaced a Visigoth church. Every place we looked was great stone work, carvings, and paintings. The church contains many El Greco paintings. This is definitely a not to be missed stop in Toledo.
We stopped at a store where I pickup a cork change purse. Next stop was a jewelry store where I bought a pendent. We went back to the hotel to drop off our purchases.
Next stop was the Museo de Santa Cruz. The exhibit was about some kings of Spain. We saw more paintings by El Greco-Roman.
We stopped for lunch and then returned to the hotel to relax and do rearranging of our luggage for tomorrow’s flight.