Toledo Cathedral

I hope you are having a good weekend.  We had a decent amount of snowfall and it finally feels like winter around here!  Today I have some photos from our trip to Spain last November to share.   We spent part of one day visiting the city of Toledo. 

We spent a lot of time in the Cathedral in Toledo.  It was very beautiful with elaborate carvings, statues and paintings.  Before we visited the city, we had lunch at a hotel on the opposite hill so we had a chance to get a great overview of the city.  (The cathedral is a little left of center in this photo).

The weather was fine and we were lucky to have a bright blue sky - here is a closer view of the tower.

On of the first areas we visited was a treasure room.  There were incredibly ornate medallions and crosses.

I think that the designs of these crosses would make interesting cutting files.

The amounts of gold and silver and the precious gemstones used for these items are overwhelming.

I think illuminated manuscripts are fascinating - this Bible was beautiful with lots of gold and great details.

The ceiling in this room was incredibly intricate.

It is tricky to get a good photo of a ceiling - I was leaning back so far that the Japanese tour group was very amused!  You can also try putting the camera on the floor and shooting straight up.

 Here are a few more ceiling shots - they had such beautiful patterns and designs.

These enormous cherub or angel heads along the arches were very interesting.

This was one of the most ornate cathedrals I have visited.

There were incredible carvings in the choir area depicting various castles and fortresses.

Some of the armrests were shaped as imaginary animals.

Here are some intricate inlaid patterns and carvings on the underside of a lectern.

Another lectern with an amazing bird.

I thought this star pattern in some floor tile was very striking.

These look like they could be painted but they are actually done with inlaid stone.

The floral swag border here is one of my favorites.

There are carvings and statues everywhere.

Many different Madonnas can be found in various chapels.

One of the most amazing areas was this section where the statues and painted figures rise to the ceiling and then are continued as painted images and frescoes.

It can be confusing to tell which images are painted and which are three dimensional.  They seem to morph before your eyes.

I hope you can get a sense of this - the contrast in the light made it very difficult to get a photo that shows everything clearly.  It might be easier to get a good photo on a cloudy day.

One more unusual feature was this enormous figure on one section of the wall.  I don't think I have ever seen something on this scale.

This is just a small sampling of images from the cathedral.  I hope you found them interesting.  I am sure I could go again and find many more fantastic things to photograph.

Toledo is also known for marzipan.

We bought some delicious marzipan candy at this shop and they had a model of a city gate - made completely of marzipan in the window!  (After showing gummy bears and a gingerbread house on the first two Saturdays, I had to sneak in a little candy here too!).

I am busy getting ready for my trip and also catching up on posting my Project 366 photos - I sure could use more hours per day!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!


Subscribe to Capadia Designs 

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Today we'll be flying to Florida - it looks like the weather will be fine for flying - it isn't snowing so with a little luck there will be no delays.  I should have a little time in the afternoon at the hotel to tidy up things on the blog for the time that I will be "at sea" on the Cricut Cruise.

I want to thank all of you who have purchased a Creative Memories Reminisce Accents or Cheerful Seasons Cricut cartridge through me.  I had enough sales in October to qualify for the layout contest.  Thanks to many of you who voted for my layout (and lots of others who don't even read my blog) I am taking my husband on a special trip for our 30th anniversary - with a lot of Cricut activities scheduled too - it should be great!

I will try to have posts scheduled and I may even find that internet is not prohibitively expensive and check in once or twice from the ship if possible.  You know that there will be lots of photos (and stories - after all my "evil twin Okie" will be there!) once I get back home.

The image at the top of this post is from one of the 20 innovative new products featured at CHA.  This is a photo transfer paper that works with an inkjet printer and transfers images beautifully to many surfaces including glass and wood.  The product is by Lesley Riley and is called Transfer Artist Paper, here is a LINK for more information. 

It is amazing what you can make by combining old photographs with paints and canvas.  I am wondering if I could find a "swimming costume" like the one in the photo after some struggles trying on bathing suits for this trip!

Have a great weekend!

Subscribe to Capadia Designs 

 

A great find....

I took a day trip to Rhode Island on Saturday.  A nice thing about New England is the size of the states which makes it easy to hop over to another state for a visit.  There is an amazing variety in the scenery and there are all sorts of interesting landmarks and historic sites to visit.

I was with my walking friends and we were keeping one friend away from home while her family set up a surprise party - amazingly enough we managed to keep the secret and she was shocked (but happy) when we came back to a back garden full of people.

We saw some amazing hydrangeas in a great variety of colors.

Lunch was delicious at a restaurant right on the water - it was very hot but at least there was a breeze.

I thought this fire hydrant was fun - it almost looks like he is holding the flag that is actually in the bushes on the lawn.

We also went to Bristol, RI - the first town in America to celebrate the 4th of July.  Instead of a double yellow stripe down the center of the streets they have red.white and blue!

The birthday cake was a big hit.  Don't the raspberries and blueberries look great together?

It was good for me to have a computer free day (well nearly - I was gone for 14 hours of the day).  Sometimes you need to "regroup" by doing something completely different.  If you were trying to get in touch with me over the weekend I am continuing to catch up on messages - let me know if you haven't had a reply and something is urgent!

So what was my "find"... ?  There was a yarn shop with terrific air conditioning (!) and a big assortment of yarns marked down to 99 cents.  The skeins average 175 yards.  I filled a bag to share with my son's girlfriend.  The skeins in the photo are for cards so watch for them to show up soon.  If you spot one of these yarns in a project on my blog and leave the first comment pointing it out, there will be a little prize for you.

There is lots of Christmas inspiration headed your way tomorrow and all week at the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot so be sure to check it out!  Tomorrow you will see cards made using a sketch I created - I hope some of you play along on the challenges!

Subscribe to Capadia Designs        

Road Trip (not a particularly "crafty" post)

I often talk about my trips back and forth to New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  I was born in Bucks County, PA and my Dad still lives there.   Our younger son goes to college in New Jersey, not too far from my sister in Montclair, so I usually combine trips to college with visits to my Dad and my sister.  The route I take from Massachusetts takes me through Hartford, Connecticut on Route 84 and down through Westchester County, New York on Routes 684 and then 287 crossing the Hudson River on the Tappan Zee Bridge.

I have traveled this route many, many times and there are occasions where the traffic or weather is terrible but on this last trip it was a bright sunny day and the conditions were great.  I reached for my little "purse camera" (KIDS - don't try this at home!) and tried to shoot a few photos while I went over the bridge.  Call me crazy but the years of crossing this bridge and some of the stories I remember (such as the year it took nearly four hours to get from the 684/287 interchange to the bridge - a distance of about eleven miles!) are things that have significance to me and my family and I would like to include those memories in a scrapbook.

The bridge is just over three miles long. and most of it is low and close to the water but it rises dramatically on a cantilever span to a clearance of 138 feet over the water.  This photo is from the approach to the bridge and shows both the low and high sections.

Here is a view of the girders of the main span - just like a giant erector set.  Once again, it was a crazy whim to snap these photos but I actually had both my hands on the steering wheel along with the camera!  The bridge is seven lanes wide with a movable "spine" that is shifted back and forth to give more lanes in the prevailing commuting direction (eastbound in the morning and westbound in the evening).

The bridge is about 25 miles north of New York City and on a clear day you can see the skyline.  (One of the benefits of a good photo editing program is the ability to "clean up" a photo taken from a moving car!).  There is a lot of talk about a new bridge.  The Tappan Zee was opened in 1955 and was designed to last 50 years so it is on borrowed time.

I was thinking about the meaning of "Heritage" (can you guess what new cartridge I just received in the mail...?).  I am working on a project with this photo of my grandmother when she was about 18 years old.  While most people think of ancestry and family trees when they hear "heritage" there are all sorts of things that make up your family heritage - including stories about 11 mile long traffic jams on the Tappan Zee bridge!

I'll be back to crafty things tomorrow - thanks for listening to my "bridge story."