Toledo

---

We were up at dawn, actually before dawn since the sun doesn´t come up here in Nov. until after 8 in the morning, and off to the train station. A four and 1-2 hour ride to Madrid and then a miserable hour waiting in the ticket que to get a ticket out to toledo. Toledo is just a quick 30 minutes outside of Madrid and as we approached I was glad we had decided to stay here instead of in the city. Toledo is an amazing medival village purched up on a hillside with a river banking 3/4 of it and a wall around the rest. We took a quick bus to the wall of the city and then walked down a cobblestone path to an opening in a part of the castle wall. There in a little encloser was our hotel!! Its absolutely amazing. Its the Hostel Cardinal, and its truly a mini castle built off the side of one of the protective walls. It was lived in at one time by a cardnial hence the name. The room is great with big heavy wooden doors and marble floors. The window looks out to the little courtyard out front. You can walk around up and down stairs leading to the part of the protective wall that archers would of stood on to shoot at attackers. Anyway, the city is full of knights and churches and lots of swords and armor in the stores.
Luke and I managed enough energy to visit the cathedral in the center. Not as big as the one in Sevilla but still absolutely amazing. It also has a great collection of art and other interesting artifacts related to the different cardinals of Spain. Im hoping I can hold on until dinner time, which is 9 at night around here (or 21:00 as they say here). I didn´t sleep much last night worrying about catching the train this morning.

Oh I almost forgot. Last night in Granada Luke and I finally figured out the Tapa´s thing. Everytime you order a drink you get another tapa. They supposibly get better as you order more drinks but we decided to Tapa hop from place to place. We ate quite a few different items and got to see the inside of 4 different tapa-wine bars before luke was soda´d out and I couldn´t handle another glass of wine. We were definitely full and all for 20€. The best prices around!
Tomorrow is a lazy day of exploring this awesome old city then home. The camera battery ran out so the pictures I load will be limited. Bummer!!

---