Today, we left Amayuelas at 8 AM to go to Toledo after promptly eating breakfast — a great assortment of breads that one of our workshops made yesterday, cereal, and coffee— at 7:30 AM. We had a long bus ride till 12 PM, filled with talking, sleeping, and doing Jayden’s makeup. After getting lost and going up a bunch of escalators (and going on some rocky roads with our luggage), we arrived at Hostel Oasis to prepare for a little bit before going to lunch. We ate at Ave Fenix, where we started off with our Primera dish, which ranged from croquettes, salad, macaroni, and much more. For our Segundos, we had Judias (soup), carcamusas (pork), pollo toledana (breaded chicken), etc. Lastly, we had helado or crema de almundres [almond creme, their speciality, and may we add, delicious] for Postres. Afterwards, we had a short free time period for 45 minutes where some of us got more helados (ice cream) and souvenirs.
After lunch, we headed over to Damasquinos, where we looked at the specialty gold creations of Toledo. The items there ranged from swords and watches to bracelets and earrings. We also got to see a gold craftsman during the visit, who specialized in making those detailed pieces right in front of us: no flash photography!
Next, we went to Talleres de Mazapán, where we made Toledo’s special dessert: mazapán, an almond based sweet. Everyone rolled and decorated their own mini mazapán (in shapes of baguettes, chocolate dipped chestnuts, and a tomato flower) after getting appropriately dressed to bake. We ate our treats and walked to the Toledo Cathedral, where we saw beautiful architecture and learned about its history. Then, we stopped at a picture perfect park to see the views of mountains and even saw people scale the rocks. We had our reflection circle and talked about plans for the next day!
Lastly, we had dinner at La Marmita, where we all shared our entrees (which ranged from croquettes and carcamusas [leaned pieces of lean pork in tomato sauce] to chopitos [fried baby squid])
and dessert.
To end the night, we went on a night tour of Toledo with our tour guide, Ricardo, exploring the curiosities, myths, and legends of Toledo.