Blogs from Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, Spain, Europe - page 10

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 ... read more

Hello Everyone! I hope everything is going well with all of you and that you are enjoying fall (or winter for some of you). We did end up going to El Parque Warner Bros. We had a lot of fun and rode all of the open rides, including the swings and the kiddy rollercoaster. We also saw a live performance of Batman Begins, which ended up being really neat. Some of them went on water rides, but it wasn't very warm outside, so I decided to opt out of that. The following Friday (the 17th) the school had an excursion planned to Alcala de Henares. It is home to one of the oldest Universities in Europe. It's also a very pretty city, just outside of Madrid. The weather was really nice and we had a good ... read more

We made it!! If you had seen the state of the roads then you would know why that is worthy of 2 exclamation marks. We are staying in a very central hotel which is great but that did mean we had to tackle the very narrow roads to get here. They are only just one car wide and that is one small car. Why people bring big cars here I have no idea. Toledo is home of the tour group, and not any old tour group. These ones act like army ants - they engulf and overpower anything in their path! On several occasions while we were relaxing in our favourite square we watched unsuspecting tourists get swallowed by them! Toledo is also home to the best restaurant we have come across. It is called La ... read more

Sunday, August 24 I was all packed and ready to go. Amy, Ty, Asher, Dan and Anna came to Mom and Dad’s for dinner, and I got to hang out and say my goodbyes to everyone. Surprisingly, there were no tears (at least that I know of) and it was easier than I thought it would be. I stayed up pretty late finishing petty things and reflecting a lot. Monday, August 25 Mom and I left home for Minneapolis at 5:45 am for my 12:15 pm flight. The airlines say to be 3 hours early for international flights, so we were. We had no trouble, though, and just hung out until I had to go through security. The first leg of my flight was to Philadelphia, and then from Philadelphia to Madrid. Tuesday, August 26 I ... read more

This morning we had to get up early because I was going with Jasmine and her school on an excursion to Toledo. Toledo is the religious capital of Spain. It used to be the political capital too, but for reasons I can’t remember, that changed to Madrid. The reason it remains the religious capital is because back in the time when Catholicism was dominant, and most places were intolerant of any other religion (in Europe), Toledo was. It was the one place that people catholic or not were accepted. Therefore, to this day, there are many churches, cathedrals, synagogs, and mosques. The city was cute. It reminded me of villages in fairytales because the streets were narrow and made out of small stones, the buildings reminded me of cottages, the whole city is surrounded by a ... read more