Holy Toledo!

Today I took the high speed train to Toledo for the afternoon. As you probably know, Toledo is of major historical significance in Spanish and European history in general. It is a beautiful medieval city, which, unfortunately, makes it a bit like another Disney World (as you may have noticed, I hate that). There is a lot to see but no culture to absorb, at least not for a tourist and not in the historical area.

For the sake of the blog, I made sure to sample local delicacy – mazapan (i.e., marzipan). I also tried a Toledana cookie that is nutty, crumbly, and not too sweet, and has a thin layer of pumpkin filling in the middle. I find that marzipan is a divisive food; some love it, some hate it. I usually love it for one or two bites, particularly when it is between chocolate, but then find that it gets sickly. The mazapan cookies I had today, one plain and one with apricot filling, were really good; they were less sweet and more baked-goods-like than the sugar and almond mush I usually associate with marzipan. The Toledana cookie was good, but I wouldn’t get it again. My intent was just to have a bite of each cookie, so I could write a blog entry and save the rest for tomorrow, but then I got bored waiting for the train back to Madrid and finished them all off. I guess it makes sense that my boss once called me a sewage system.

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