Blogs from Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, Spain, Europe - page 5

You know how in the US when you are walking towards someone and you’re eventually going to walk into eachother, so you both go right? Yeah…. That doesn’t happen here, they just run into you. Cars do not stop, and neither do the people. I got literally no sleep last night, our last night in madrid, because our hotel faced the street and everyone was running through the streets screaming and yelling and partying. The other thing that is way weird to me at this point is they literally kiss everyone. When our tour guides picked us up they gave us all los besos, which is basically rubbing your cheeks together, and making an extremely obnoxious kissing smooch sound in their ear and then doing the same on the other side. It’s different from the French ... read more

www.thetattooedtraveler.com The more I visit sleepy, little, backwater towns of Europe— like Sienna, Bruges, and Toledo— the more I love them. Once political and economic powerhouses, these places were forgotten by time only to be rediscovered by tourists centuries later. Like mummies, they’re preserved in the state they were in, seemingly unaffected by centuries of modernization. Yes, they’re touristy— most of their economies center on tourism— but they’re also a window into the past. Toledo is only a 30-minute train ride from Madrid, making it an easy day trip, but I decided to spend a night and take my time exploring. It’s important to know a bit about Toledo’s complex history to fully appreciate its splendor. The Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and finally Christians all ruled this impressive hilltop town at one time or another. It was ... read more

Hola from Toledo!... read more

It was a pretty short drive the next day. The famed city of Toledo, as in Holy, was our destination. We tried to follow CM2019 but it was going to take 4 hours. Our need for a scenic drive was trumped by our desire to sit on our bums and have a cold beer. We asked the Irish lady in the TomTom for the quickest route. She wanted us to take a road called N400. At some point in the last few years the Spanish had built a new road. It didn't look all that new to us, but the TomTom didn't have it (just how old were these maps anyway?). We did the intelligent thing and followed the signs, which really freaked out the gps – she yelled at us for a while before shutting ... read more

We had already been impressed by our first view of Toledo’s old town as we navigated our way around in search of our hotel yesterday. As usual this part of town is high on a hill, so today we expected to spend time climbing and getting very hot. Instead, the underground carpark entrance popped up in just the right place to access huge escalators made for tourists who have climbing fatigue after cardiovascular workouts at several historic hill towns. What a marvellous way to rise up the hill and thank you to those who made it possible. As we left the topmost escalator we picked up a map from the Information Centre and headed off to explore with a couple of particular sites in mind, knowing our euros wouldn’t stretch to going into all the possible ... read more