Spain's Most Famous Sweet Came From Syria (A2)

Beginner (A2) · Travel & Geography · 14 min · Premium

Toledo is the marzipan capital of Europe. I went there partly to eat it.

The thing nobody tells you is where it is from. Marzipan is a Levantine sweet, from Syria and the countries around it, and the word itself is Arabic. مرطبان became marzipan. In Syria we do not call it that at all. We call it اللوزينا, and I love it.

So in the last photograph of me on this trip I am standing in the dark in a black jacket and jeans holding a paper bag, and the bag is full of marzipan I had just bought.

The rest of this video is Toledo at night, which is the best version of it. The cathedral lit up, a family crossing the square with a pram, children on fairground rides instead of a PlayStation, a Christmas tree covered in blue light, souvenir shops selling fridge magnets, and streets so full you could barely walk. I love crowds. Spain in December is nothing but crowds and I was very happy.

And the last photograph is the one I keep going back to. The bridge, the river, the palace, and the moon above all three. My heart melted like ice cream.

Walking around that city hearing Arabic names and seeing Arabic decoration everywhere I looked made me happier than I expected to be.

Simple descriptive Levantine Arabic, around A2. Vocabulary: كاتدرائيه, ساحه, زحمه, العاب, اضواء, سوفونيرز, مغناطيس, المرزبان, اللوزينا, القمر.

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