Madrid, Spain to Toledo, Spain

This morning we left Madrid for Toledo. I took in as much scenery of Madrid in before writing some postcards. By the time I’d finished two postcards, Toledo was in sight. Toledo is a beautiful old town, once Spain’s capital, situated on a hill in the middle of nowhere.

Toledo, Spain

We got off the bus at 10.30 am and set about finding accommodation. We went and found a cheap pension that was recommended by the Lonely Planet, but we went too far. Fortunately, we found the tourist office and got a better map, only to find our desired pension full. We walked back to the Eurobus suggested hostel, checking out some places that were too expensive along the way. When we arrived, the owner didn’t want us staying there because we were Eurobus travelers. Me and my big mouth. There was a hotel around the corner, which was too expensive, but offered us a cheap room, once it become vacated. So, we went and had some lunch, and upon return found out that the room had been rebooked for another 2 nights. The owner, though, went ahead and booked us into a pension just down the road. As it turns out, this place was beautiful and cheap, and literally around the corner from our first choice.

After checking in, we headed straight to Museo de Santa Cruz, which looks like it may have been an old monastery. This museum is filled with two floors of religious art, furniture and tapestry. There is a lot of paintings by El Greco here. El Greco is a Spanish artist who actually lived in Toledo between 1577-1614. His two most famous paintings here are La Asuncion (Assumption of the Virgin) and La Sagrada Familia (The Sacred Family). This painting was restored during the 1980s to reveal an undisclosed Joseph, after many centuries.

When we finished at the museum, we went back to the pension for our siesta.

We got ready later, and walked around town, before meeting Alison, Carolyn, Anna from Melbourne, and Sharron from Birmingham, to go out for dinner. We ended up at Ludena, a restaurant listed in the Lonely Planet, which had a 3-course meal for 1200 pesetas.

After the filling dinner, we walked down to Plaza de Zocodover to have a couple of drinks at an outdoor café. It was great here – sitting outside, drinking, and chatting in the evening heat.