El Viernes Santo en Toledo

For Good Friday, my communist friend Marco and me, a syndicalist-atheist, decided to experience the catholic face of Spain and went see the processions in Toledo. Originally, we wanted to go by train, so we met at the Atocha station at 11:45 to buy a ticket for a train at 12:20. Shockingly, all Madrid-Toledo trains were sold out. Therefore, we decided to get a ticket for a bus leaving from the Estación Sur - Méndez Álvaro. It's a great idea, because shortly after we were sitting in an express bus to Toledo. Sky of Castilla - La Mancha didn't look very promising, but I have been reassuring myself that if we had such luck with the transportation, we would have the same or better luck with the weather. Well... We arrived to Toledo at 13:30 and we followed the "what-to-do-in-Toledo" recommendations/suggestions that we got from Isabelita. The idea was to do a version of Via Crucis, in our case not a Way of the Cross, but a Way of the Jarras. The first stop was a great little pub called El Enebro, serving a good beer with big free tapas. Unfortunately, it was also a time when the first rain arrived. Around the fifth stop, the rain changed into hail. We were just sitting in one pub when the hail broke the glass roof and the rain started to fill the place, it was simply amazing (and scary, too). Because of the rain, there were no processions, even though we saw some preparations. On the way to the last pub, we heard some drums and, finally, we saw a little procession, but without any statues. Our final beer was in a pub called Livingstone, where we successfully finished our Via Dolorosa.