Madrid one more time 14

For someone who spends most Sunday mornings making pancakes and brewing decaff coffee, on my travels I always make a point to have a look inside the local church. They have free wine!

I’ve ticked off quite a few German doms, Italian duomos and English minsters, but I can report that Toledo’s cathedral ranks as the most extravagant place of worship that I have seen to date. Every inch of the interior has been decorated, carved, gilded or embellished over the centuries.

It felt like a million pair of eyes looked down on us sinners: cherubs jostled with saints, while any gaps between angels were filled with bodiless faces. A fair few thousand earthbound eyes stared back up at the heavenly host. I’ve no idea what the floor is like, it was impossible to see for all the hundreds of other tourists milling about!

Regular announcements in several languages insisted ‘silence – no photos’ so the images for this entry are ones I’ve had to crib from elsewhere.

Several coachloads of tourists of were being marched around and the herds caused jams in the choir stalls, so it was hard to appreciate the wooden carvings here.

Most panels were dedicated to the Christians laying siege to the Moors occupying the city, but there were also the more imaginative flights of fancy that you often find in this part of a church.

The altar, both front...

...and back,

was an astonishing exercise in over the top glamour in the name of God. It was hard to tell if there was a Biblical message to be gleaned from the cavalcade of bejewelled bishops and other men wrapped in satin.

The sacristy houses a Prado in miniature with paintings by El Greco, Bassano, Van Dyck, Goya and Ribera. Most canvasses though were dull portraits of church leaders and interchangeable idealised saints.

Caravaggio’s St John the Baptist (one of several versions he painted) was pick of the bunch, dramatic and effective, but like the rest in need of a clean.

I suppose you can expect a bit of dust and grime in a 785-year-old building. Work on the present structure first began in 1227 atop the foundations of a 6thC church which had been used by the Moors as a mosque.

According to the brochure, ticket sales help maintain the building as well as the ‘charitable goals of the church.’ Standing in the Treasury and looking agog at the gold reliquaries...

...illuminated manuscripts and jewel-encrusted goblets all locked up behind glass, the thought occurred that perhaps the bishops could sell off a couple trinkets to tend to the sick, house the poor and feed the hungry.

Speaking of hungry, let’s go find somewhere to eat!