If you read my previous post, you’ll know that at the beginning of June I flew to Madrid for a four-day mini vacation. Four days isn’t a long time, but it’s surprising just how much you can see, do and experience in that time. I spent three days in Madrid and one day in Toledo, a nearby city.
I was very impressed by the Madrid public transport: the Metro subway, which I took most days to get around the city, was clean, fast, easy to navigate and incredibly cheap at €1.50 for a single journey (about $1.65).
Admittedly, I was with a friend who knows her way around Madrid so I didn’t have to worry too much about getting lost. But compared with my experiences on the Tube in London, the Madrid Metro is a breeze. It is also air-conditioned, something that many Tube trains are not!
It was also a novelty to me to travel via intercambiador (interchange) stations. Madrid has some stations which combine bus and subway services in one station with lots of different levels. So you get on a bus which is underground and the driver weaves through the subterranean roads to arrive out into the Madrid sun.
Trains run regularly to Toledo from Estación de Madrid Atocha — the main railway station. But on day two of my trip, we decided to take the bus to Toledo in the autonomous province of Castilla-La Mancha (a region famed for the Don Quixote connection). It was cheaper and only took half an hour longer than the train.
The landscape between Madrid and Toledo is almost completely flat. And the well-known children’s rhyme, “In Spain, the rain falls mainly on the plain”, is lying. In Spain, the flat plains of Castilla-La Mancha are parched and dry.
As the old capital of Spain, Toledo is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the city is beautiful. Built on the side of a steep gorge of the Río Tajo, it sits on a rocky hill. The streets are cobblestone, steep and winding…and very, very narrow. We had to squeeze ourselves into doorways a few times to let cars pass on streets that were originally built only for feet!
Toledo has an ancient history — captured by the Romans in 192 BC, over the centuries that followed it became the home of Moors, Jews and Christians. For years, they lived together in equality and prosperity. But the Spanish Inquisition, founded by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1478 to maintain Catholic rule, drove out Muslims and Jews from Toledo. In the sixteenth century, Madrid became Spain’s capital.
Toledo is a compact city, so we wandered around taking in all the beautiful architecture and historic buildings. Many shops sell marzipan and dulces, traditionally made by the nuns in Toledo’s convents.
The historic centre is full of churches (iglesias), chapels, synagogues and other religious buildings, with La Catedral Primada at its centre. The cathedral took 267 years to build and was finally completed in 1493.
The architectural detail and stonework on the cathedral is amazing, as this photo of the Last Supper shows:
Despite its relatively compact size, at the end of the day we had walked 12 km (7.5 miles). It was great fun to explore the city — walking around the centre; a stroll by the Río Tajo on a path which is connected with the Camino Natural hiking route; lunch at a small restaurant shaded by trees; eating lemon ice cream and people-watching in the main square of Plaza de Zocódover.
The weather, of course, was beautiful — sunny and hot without being humid. This will sound strange, but I love the fragrance that rises from the warm earth and dry grasses in the Mediterranean heat. I wish I could live with that kind of weather all the time!
Next time, in my third and final post about my Spanish vacation, I’ll share more about my travels in Madrid — visiting an Egyptian temple and walking along a street of poems.
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It’s amazing to think that hundreds of years ago, people who lived in cities like Toledo most likely saw much of the same landscape and architecture that still stands today. Just from your pictures alone I can feel the rich history and culture that surrounds the city. That last shot of the river is beautiful; it’s like a scene from a painting!
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Yes! And I also think about how those people, centuries ago, weren’t all that dissimilar to people today. They had the same fundamental needs — food, water, shelter. They had jobs and livelihoods and people they loved and families to support… It’s quite comforting really, to realize that the same aspects of human existence run like a thread through the centuries. Now I’ll stop my philosophical ramblings, haha!
I’m glad you enjoyed the photos. 🙂 It was fun to revisit them today. I still need to sort out my Scotland pictures!
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Lovely trip and pictures. 🙂
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Thank you. 🙂
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It seems as if you did and saw a lot on your short stay. My husband keeps taking about a trip to Spain, perhaps next year.
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Have you and your husband visited Spain before? It is a country which has so many diverse regions to see. If you go, I hope you enjoy it. 🙂
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I went to Spain two times before my husband and I were married. He reads so much about the food there and that is what has him so interested in going.
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The food is good, especially if you enjoy meaty dishes. I am mainly vegetarian but sometimes I do eat fish. In Toledo, many of the restaurant main courses were either meat or fish — no veggie option apart from salad and gazpacho. And very good olives! 🙂
My favourite type of European cuisine is Greek food, especially when it’s eaten sitting outside at a little taverna on one of the islands. Mouthwatering! 🙂
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I do remember how good the seafood was in Barcelona but that it was very expensive. Oh and the fried potatoes cooked in olive oil…yummy. 😀
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The first picture of the bridge in Toledo is beautiful! I am always surprised, too, and how much one can do in see in just a few days!
Love the picture of you, too, beautiful girl!
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Thank you! It was such a fun day. 🙂
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Great tour, Grace. today it’s hard to fathom a building taking over two hundred years to construct. But they were probably a lot sturdier that the buildings today.
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Thank you. 🙂
It is amazing, isn’t it? I suppose it took such a long time because everything was built by hand and all the ornate stonework was chiselled without machines.
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