Toledo rises above the swimming pool at Camping El Greco.
The Rio Tajo cuts a gorge around the city.
The city's treasure chest of architecture includes Medieval, Romanesque and principally
Gothic buildings. 
Toledo has taken on the extensive task of restoring all of its original city wall and
tower fortifications, costing around 400 million pesetas. |
EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNAL August
10, 1999
Toledo
Greek in Spain
El Greco painted a picture called Vista y Plano de Toledo (View of Toledo), with
the city perched on its perfect hill and the Tagus, jade, snaking around it and under the
stone Puente Alcantara. The view glows with the spires and domes of the iglesias, the
Monasterio San Juan de los Reyes, the massive, pure French Gothic cathedral where, with
the permission of the Pope, the Mozarabic Mass, dating back to Visigothic times is still
said. We’re situated less than two kilometres from the old city in a deluxe European
campground with splashing children and contented Nederlanders in fancy tents and
camper-vans. Our Bike n’Hike tent, a knee-high synthetic room which, when lying in
it, magnificently simulates the crevice between the giant rocks of a Megalithic tomb,
leans precariously in the dust, held in place on metal stakes, in the shadow of lean pines
on the banks of the Tagus. From the swimming pool, necessary at 37 degrees Celsius, we
catch El Greco’s View of Toledo.
El Greco ("The Greek") or Domenikos Theotokopoulos was born in Crete in 1541
and came to Toledo in 1577 to paint the altarpiece in the Convent of Santo Domingo el
Antiguo. Enchanted by the city, the artist stayed in Toledo painting religious portraits
and altarpieces for other churches. His now famous works are displayed throughout the
city, many of which have not been moved since their execution. Others have been
transported to the Prado Museum in Madrid. El Greco’s quintessential El Entierro
del Conde de Orgaz (The Burial of Count Orgaz) is a grey, eerie and wooden portrait of
the dying Count, the principle patron of the 14th century Iglesia de Santo Tome
where the painting hangs. The somber work depicts the miraculous appearance of two saints
at the Count’s burial and includes a self-portrait, a portrait of the artist’s
son Jorge Manuel (who later built Toledo’s city hall) and Cervantes in the crowd of
mourners. El Greco died in Toledo in 1614. |
