New-York tribune., 1922-05-14
= OLEDO and Barcelona may be set down
as the veritable antipodes of this
strange new-old nation of the Iberian

as the veritable antpodes of this
strange new-old nation of the Iberian
peninsula. The one city is SO very
very old, the other so strangely new Toledo,
shrunk in its twenty-one centuries Of weary
existence from city-at it: zenth-of some
100000 souls, now supports bare 10000
1t might easily be Jerusalem. Barcelona, with
its population of over a million folk in its
thrift and enterprise and progress, might be
called our own Toronto. Let us begin logical
ly and chonoogically-with Toledo
went down there on a one-day excursion
from Madrd-sixty miles in each direction.
The man in Cooks place there at the Spanish
capital agreed to run ME down" with
courier if fellow passenger could be found
NO fellow passenger showed up. and the
ticket agent wrote my travel necessities in
purest CastiHan on slip of paper which |
could hand in at the railroad station on the
morrow. I do not speak Spanish 1t is not
essential to travel here-athough very
great comfort and aid. On the morrow |
slipped my instructions slip and 25-peseta
note in through the wicket at the Mediodia
station and received my Toledo ticket
rather squaid and ancient train was waiting
at nearby platform. l boarded it and after
the handsome new railway station at Toledo.
1t IS the only new thing in the town. with
the exception of the hotel, of which the in
habitants brag quite as mmoderately as those
of our own newer communities 1t is built
OF concrete bocks-itself gaunt packing
case sort OF an atfalr-and is strangely rem
7nlscent OF the sort of thing that an enterprs-
Ing county-scat town down in Oklahoma or in
west Texas has profound delight in building.
Only in Oklahoma or in west Texas thew
would PROBABLY have great plenty of private
baths and other convenences in cleanliness.
The Hotel CASTLE, in Toledo, has little luxury.
Its single washroom and lavatory is run
strictly upon the co-educational principle The
tranload Of dusty folk arriving from Madrid
had hardly ascended the long hill upon the
crest of which ancient Toledo sleeps before
there was a concerted rush upon the hotels
one washroom. Yet all in vain Even it
was not available. 1t contained the new ho-
tels one bathtub. And the star boarder was
taking his bath
NET one does not go to Toledo to indulge
in the luNuries of new hotels He goes
to seep his very soul in the charm OF what
probably is to-day truly the most medieval
Of all the old cities Of Europe confess, NV
self, to no very great interest in cathcdrals
and that sort of thing-particular the aver
age cathedral-but this one caught me and
held me enthralled. 1t is the one church that
have ever seen that never could tire me-
not If / went to it once day for forty years
10 come. 1t is the most beautiful building
that | have ever seen---so brilliantly rich in
It's colorings, so fiamboyant, so baroquc and
yet so entirely exquisite
In Toledo 1t is a vista here, vista there
like the steady changing of the scenery in
theater And untirng in the changing
My train returned to Madrid at S 45 o. m
tIvc-forty-ive came before | was aware of
it. An hour before that time / was in the
Plaza de Constitution, the ore really open
place in the whole crowded, confused, con-
gested town. | was studying the folk who
came and went within it, "Carmen,' said to
myself. And SO it was--the first act of the
Bzet opera. More than ever kept thinking
myself in a theater and the orchestra about
20 strike up the Toreador song. When-lo
and behold and all the rest Of it---a band did
strike up the marching song from "Carmen'.
This certainly theater. This could not
be Spain The playing band Of musicians that
marched briskly across the little plaza. the
long file Of remarkably neat soldiery that fol-