Day 2 / Day trip to Toledo

On a colleague's urging, I took a day trip to the walled medieval city of Toledo, literally built up on a hill. I had looked up the transportation options on the Internet, much to the surprise of a Spanish colleague of mine. You can go by superfast RENFE trains from Atocha station to Toledo station, then take a bus, but I opted for the cheaper (and no less fast) option of long-distance bus.

At Callao metro station I bought a Metro ticket for Zone T (one day Abono Turistico), which gives you unlimited bus and metro rides not only inside central madrid but inside the whole region -- which extends (amazingly) to Toledo. 7,90EUR compared to 2 x 4,40 EUR just for a single round trip ticket from Madrid to Toledo.

I used the ticket to get to Mendez Alvaro, a station on the loop line in the Madrid metro network, and connected to the long-distance bus terminal there. It's a huge terminal with a lot of bus companies there and a long, long set of concessions there selling bus tickets, cakes, supplies, and phone cards .. just like the bus terminals in many countries. (FYI: just outside of the terminal is a humongous El Corte Ingles department store and Hypercor supermarket where you can load up on supplies like water and sandwiches for your day trip.)

I presented the ticket at the Continental Auto-bus counter and they gave me a voucher allowing me to ride the bus. Right across the way is a staircase leading down to the buses and the second or third bus after the exit was the one that I wanted. Very comfortable bus, air conditioned and perfect to sleep in. I closed my eyes and one hour later I was in Toledo!

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Toledo is a castle town built on a hill. The streets are narrow so it's easy to get lost, as I found several times during my visit.

However the two main sights of interest for me were not the touristic shops selling all kinds of knives and armor, or the marzipan desserts (shown here in the photo), nor the local products on sale in the small shops (see other photo), but were the paintings of the Greek painter nicknamed "El Greco" by the Spanish patrons who "adopted" him and commissioned him to do portraits of themselves and religious-based paintings.

In one corner of Toledo there is a fantastic museum that used to serve as the home for a well-known sculptor which now serves as the showroom for the El Greco paintings that had been on display in the El Greco museum. The whole complex is fantastic: quiet, and overlooking the riverbed and stone bridge below.

There is also one El Greco masterpiece in a small church not too far from where these other paintings were on display. Measuring several meters in length, it's magnificent spiraling painting similar to his works on display in Madrid. Narrow-faced people lit up by a strange holy luminescence, spiralling up the masterpiece.

For lunch, my first choice of restaurant was completely full. I had gone there at 12h30, only to find that lunch hour began at 13h30. I went back at 14h00 thinking that I could get a table but ha! it was fully booked. I spent another good half-an-hour deciding on a place to eat, and finally ended up at a bar which had a lunch snack special of cold gazpacho andalusia (wonderful stuff: cold tomato soup with garlic and bits of crisp cucumber), a potato omelette served with salsa, and a dessert of very sweet melon. With this, a half-bottle of wine, which nearly killed me later on as I rode home. Having been grossly dehydrated by the day's walk in the hot weather, only after I drank 1/2 a bottle of water did my body recalibrate itself: until then, I felt terribly sluggish.

After my ride back on my day ticket, I journeyed up to Bernabeu stadium, home of Real Madrid and former stomping ground of the LA Galaxy superstar David Beckham. Beyond that, I was just too beat to walk around and called it a day. For dinner: a very simple ham sandwich with fruit and beer (1,90 EUR from Museo del Jamon, a chain of shops specializing in Dad's favorite, raw ham ...)