Madrid/Toledo

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Saturday morning, we flew out from Lisbon back to Madrid, where we would fly back to Alicante from on Monday morning. After arriving, we managed to find our way through three different metro lines to our hostel next to the Plaza de la Puerta del Sol, the center of the city. After checking in, we walked straight to El Museo del Prado. We passed an hour and a half there looking at hundreds and hundreds of paintings. I wouldn’t have felt right being in Madrid and not seeing the Prado, so I’m glad we went but again, I wish I knew more about art so that I could appreciate what I was seeing more. The best I could do was to recognize the names of Picasso, Goya, and Valazquez, but I still enjoyed looking at a lot of the paintings. After the Prado, we decided to visit El Museo de la Reina Sofía. It was right down the street and also had free entrance hours then, so we saw that for a half hour - before realizing we were both really hungry and arted out.
We spent Saturday night at the hostel, relaxing and watching a movie (in English!), and started early again on Sunday. We visited the Plaza Mayor right away because it was close to our hostel and then hopped on the metro to go to the bus station, from which we took a bus to Toledo, a picturesque medieval town about forty-five minutes away. There wasn’t a whole lot to see in Toledo, but I really like it. The atmosphere was very relaxed and the city was very clean and historic. As I understand, Toledo is the heart of the Catholic Church in Spain, and after looking at a town map, we realized why. There was one cathedral, a half dozen other churches, about five convents, a couple of monasteries, and a seminary all within the old city center. Wow.
After spending a couple hours in Toledo, we took the bus back to Madrid and finished exploring the main sites there. There isn’t a whole lot to see other than a lot of plazas, a handful of museums, and a few parks in Madrid, but I felt like I needed to see it if I was going to be in Spain for five months. I did like it though, especially the wide sidewalks and cleanliness 😊 Also, the Parque del Retiro was very cool. It was huge and full of sculptures and fountains, activities for kids, and ponds.
Early Monday morning we flew back to Alicante from Madrid. I really enjoyed that trip, but it was good to be at home base again.

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