Miscellany: Holy Toledo

My family has a habit of compressing full vacations into ludicrously short timeframes. Whether it's a trip to Key West in 24 hours, or a week spent at Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Niagara Falls (driving the whole way), any time we have on holiday is concentrated in outlandish ways. This phenomenon came to a head when we spent literally two hours in Toledo, Spain.

We were on a guided tour, and we followed a spry old man about as we rocketed through the town. He tended to linger a bit too long explaining things, but otherwise, we managed to see quite a bit, including centuries-old cathedrals and synagogues. I had vowed to get a souvenir of some sort for my friends back home, but since the tour was non-stop, I had to pass by shop after shop (the historic part of Toledo is literally infested with tourist shops).

I lost hope when I saw that the old man was leading us back to the tour buses. Thankfully, the tour guide had one final stop in mind - a small steel workshop...and its gift shop. I'm surprised a tour agency would have the gall to unceremoniously dump you into a store as part of the tour, but I did manage to buy those souvenirs. Thanks for the letter-openers, Toledo!