Toledo Tales: The Daily Rat Run

This series of photographs was inspired by a fellow blogger in Shanghai, who posted last week under the heading “My Neighbourhood Via Phone”. So, I thought to myself, why not take a few snaps of what I see every day when I step outside my front door to do my food shopping, meet someone for a coffee etc. (I did not use my phone to take the snaps, coz I can’t figure out how the bloody thing works. It’s the tool of the devil.)

Shit! Cat shit, to be exact. Right outside my front door. Every day, there it is, in precisely the same spot. It’s only the degree of freshness and…erm… consistency that varies.

If you want to take a look at the culprits, click here.

And if you want to know what’s being done about it (or not, lol), see here. Sigh.

Straight in front is the back of the University building. The brickwork is painted on, they call this a “trampantojo” (deceiving the eyes). I do wonder why they bothered, seeing as this is a backstreet, where tourists do not tend to venture

Through the passage to the right, we have an old, extremely dilapidated building adjacent to a recently renovated one

Same as above, different perspective

I’ve turned left now, heading for the narrow shortcut that I use almost every day

There’s always someone coming the other way

The passage spills out onto Plaza De San Vicente. You can tell it’s before 10am, because after that time, all the delivery vans have to have left the old town

The Post Office’s fierce letter boxes

Delivery vehicles clogging up Calle De La Plata (Silver Street)

View down Calle De La Plata, in the other direction

The small delicatessen shop on Calle De La Plata that I regularly frequent. A tad pricey, but I’ve never been sold anything in there that wasn’t top notch.
Those are hams dangling from the ceiling. The little triangular-looking things sticking out the bottom of the hams are cones designed to catch any dripping fat. And oooooh, just look at the cheese!

I only noticed a couple of weeks ago that the building on top of the deli was actually quite stunning

Watch out! This is the most expensive corner shop in the Western hemisphere. Do not go in there. Ever. Not even for an emergency pack of chewing gum. You’ll come out with the shirt ripped off your bleedin’ back, missing an arm and a leg. (O un riñon, si eres español.)

The frozen yoghurt shop gets rather too much business from me. Right next to it, there’s a shop selling lottery tickets. When it’s open, there’s always a line of people. The Spanish are totally lottery mad, economic crisis or not.

Now I just hope I haven’t bored the pants off anyone…!