When one approaches an unknown city one ought to have near by some one
who has already seen it and is able to indicate the opportune moment to
put one's head out of the window and get the first view. I had the good
fortune to be informed in time. Some one said to me, "There is Toledo!"
and I sprang to the window with an exclamation of wonder.
Toledo rises on a sheer rocky height, at whose foot the Tagus describes
a grand curve. From the plain one sees only the rocks and the walls
of the fortress, and beyond the wall the tips of the belfries and
the towers. The houses are hidden from view; the city seems to be
closed and inaccessible, and presents the appearance of an abandoned
stronghold rather than of a city. From the walls to the river-banks
there is not a single house nor tree; all is bare, parched, craggy,
precipitous; not a soul is in sight; you would say that to make the
ascent it would be necessary to climb, and it seems that at the first
appearance of a man on the face of those rocks a shower of arrows would
fall upon him from the top of the wall.
You leave the train, get into a carriage, and arrive at the entrance
of a bridge. It is the famous bridge Alcantara, which spans the Tagus,
surmounted by a beautiful Moorish gate in the form of a tower, which
gives it a bold, severe appearance. Crossing the bridge, you turn
into a wide roadway which winds up in large serpentine curves until
it reaches the top of the mountain. Here it really seems that you are
under a fortified city of the Middle Ages, and you imagine yourself in
the guise of a Moor or a Goth or a soldier of Alfonso VI. From every
part precipitous rocks hang over your head, crumbling walls, towers,
and the ruins of ancient bastions, and higher up the last wall which
encircles the city, black, crowned with enormous battlements, opened
here and there by great breaches, behind which the imprisoned houses
rear their heads; and as you climb higher and higher the city seems
to draw back and hide itself. Halfway up the ascent you come to the
_Puerto del Sol_, a jewel of Moorish architecture, consisting of two
embattled towers which are joined over a very graceful double-arched
colonnade, under which runs the ancient street; and from that point, if
you look back, you may see at a glance the Tagus, the valley, and the
hills. You go on and find other walls and other ruins, and finally the
first houses of the city.
What a city! At the first moment I caught my breath. The carriage had
turned down a little street, so narrow that the hubs of the wheels
almost touched the walls of the houses.
[Illustration: _Gate of the Sun, Toledo_]
"Why do you turn in here?" I asked the driver.