{"id":1275,"date":"2014-10-14T06:37:05","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T05:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1275"},"modified":"2014-10-14T06:41:50","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T05:41:50","slug":"week-41-irkas-visit-toledo","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1275","title":{"rendered":"Week 41: Irka’s visit, Toledo"},"content":{"rendered":"

My sister and brother-in-law were still with us last week, and thankfully, as the Thursday was a public holiday, I was able to take Friday off and have a long weekend with them, part of which we used for a trip to Toledo, a city I had never visited before despite living in Spain since 2007.<\/p>\n

41_1<\/strong>
\nBut I start with a couple of pictures from work. The construction of our new building, as seen from the top floor of the existing building:
\n\"L1011610\"<\/p>\n

41_2<\/strong>
\nFrancisco explains things to our new Italian trainee Francesco:
\n\"L1011612\"<\/p>\n

41_3<\/strong>
\nOne of the traditions when my sister visits is that she makes pierogi<\/em>, Polish dumplings. I came home from work one day to capture the last stages of preparation (and to eat them, of course). Here is a batch, boiled:
\n\"L1011603\"<\/p>\n

41_4<\/strong>
\nThe are then fried on a pan:
\n\"R000304\"<\/p>\n

41_5<\/strong>
\n…and served with fried onion:
\n\"R000305\"<\/p>\n

41_6<\/strong>
\nAnother evening we went to the harbour in El Campello to see the cats and to have a beer in one of the many bars along the beach promenade. We came across several groups of French people playing p\u00c3\u00a9tanque on the beach. Here, a player takes aim:
\n\"L1011616\"<\/p>\n

41_7<\/strong>
\nThe shot on the way:
\n\"L1011617\"<\/p>\n

41_8<\/strong>
\nThe players gather around the balls to determine whose ball is closest to the cochonet<\/em>, the little round ball that is the object of the game:
\n\"L1011618\"<\/p>\n

41_9<\/strong>
\nWe then went to check on the cats in the harbour:
\n\"L1011620\"<\/p>\n

41_10<\/strong>
\n\"L1011622\"<\/p>\n

41_11<\/strong>
\n\"L1011628\"<\/p>\n

41_12<\/strong>
\nA fisherman mending his nets:
\n\"L1011632\"<\/p>\n

41_13<\/strong>
\nWe then sat down to have a beer on the promenade while watching the moonrise:
\n\"L1011644\"<\/p>\n

41_14<\/strong>
\nA big part of the pleasure is to watch the people walking by, young and old:
\n\"L1011639\"<\/p>\n

41_15<\/strong>
\n\"L1011650\"<\/p>\n

41_16<\/strong>
\nAs usual, I was out on my bicycle several mornings. Part of the pleasure is to watch the sunrise, this time from the bridge over R\u00c3\u00ado Seco in El Campello:
\n\"R000307\"<\/p>\n

41_17<\/strong>
\n\"R000312\"<\/p>\n

41_18<\/strong>
\n\"R000313\"<\/p>\n

41_19<\/strong>
\n\"R000314\"<\/p>\n

41_20<\/strong>
\nOn Thursday, we drove the 420 km to Toledo, a city which my Spanish friends had been telling me about during the seven years I have lived here, but which I had never gotten around to visiting, until now. The place turned out to be wonderful, starting with our hotel, Cigarral de Caravantes, on a hill overlooking the river and the city:
\n\"R000336\"<\/p>\n

41_21<\/strong>
\nThe cathedral is truly magnificent:
\n\"DSF8811\"<\/p>\n

41_22<\/strong>
\nShadow and light:
\n\"DSF8793\"<\/p>\n

41_23<\/strong>
\nAnother church we visited, Iglesia del Salvador. Like many churches in Spain, this building was a mosque during Moorish rule:
\n\"DSF8836\"<\/p>\n

41_24<\/strong>
\nAs is my habit when visiting a city, I looked for little details when I walked around Toledo:
\n\"DSF8740\"<\/p>\n

41_25<\/strong>
\nDon’t park here!:
\n\"DSF8837\"<\/p>\n

41_26<\/strong>
\nOpening for business:
\n\"R000344\"<\/p>\n

41_27<\/strong>
\nWe had several rainy spells which we spent either looking at indoor attractions like churches and museums, or just sitting in a bar, looking out:
\n\"DSF8819\"<\/p>\n

41_28<\/strong>
\nOf course, city streets in rain are quite photogenic:
\n\"DSF8775\"<\/p>\n

41_29<\/strong>
\nStreet conversation:
\n\"DSF8772\"<\/p>\n

41_30<\/strong>
\nThis is where we had lunch on Friday, before heading back to Alicante:
\n\"DSF8839\"<\/p>\n

41_31<\/strong>
\nOn Saturday we went to the centre to have a look at the people who had come to watch the start of the Volvo Ocean Race. I have absolutely no interest in sailing, so I just looked at the people who had come to watch the boats. I have no idea what this helicopter was doing:
\n\"L1011656\"<\/p>\n

41_32<\/strong>
\nRestaurant guests at the Plaza Puerta del Mar, human and non-human:
\n\"L1011652\"<\/p>\n

41_33<\/strong>
\nMichelin lady on the back of a scooter (picture taken while driving home from the centre):
\n\"L1011657\"<\/p>\n

More Toledo pictures can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My sister and brother-in-law were still with us last week, and thankfully, as the Thursday was a public holiday, I was able to take Friday off and have a long weekend with them, part of which we used for a trip to Toledo, a city I had never visited before despite living in Spain since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1102,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1275"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1275"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1275\/revisions\/1277"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}