Madrid is an exciting visit city to visit, and there is much to do. But after a while, you may want a travel experience at a much less hurried pace than the one the big city provides. All of us need a break from the busy streets, art galleries, palaces, museums, and cultural events from time to time while we are abroad.
If you arrive at that point, probably what you need is an excursion outside of the city. There are several towns and other interesting places to visit within an hour’s travel of Madrid -including three UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the historic town of Aranjuez; El Escorial, the 16th-century monastery-palace; and the university town of Alcalá de Henares.
We didn’t get to any of those, but on the Saturday before we headed down to Nerja, we hopped on a train and travelled south from Madrid to the medieval hilltop city of Toledo, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is only a half-hour train ride, and there are several departures back-and-forth all day long.
The “City of Three Cultures”, as it is known, is steeped in centuries of well-preserved history. Three cultures lived here together harmoniously during the Middle Ages, and today most of the city’s major attractions retain the cultural and artistic elements of all three: Jewish, Islamic, and Christian.
As you wend your way through the narrow cobblestone streets, past its historic medieval walls, mosques, churches, and synagogues, it is easy to feel that you are being transported back in time. The town oozes charm, and is well worth a visit.
Getting There
Train! That’s it. If you are the sort of person who likes to drive, I suppose you could rent a car and drive down. But why? The train will get you there in half an hour, all the while allowing you to enjoy the scenery rolling by as you travel between the two cities.
If you are torn between taking the train and renting and driving, perhaps the cost will put things into perspective for you. It cost us a grand total of €44 for the two of us to go down and back. That is approximately C$66. And having been to the town, I’m pretty sure that finding a spot to park a car would be an issue.
The other cost I would have to factor into our outing was the cost of the taxi to get us down to the train station and back to our hotel. That amounted to another €16.
Travelling by Train
I suppose I should make mention of the processes involved in securing train tickets and actually getting yourself on board. 🙂 We bought our tickets in advance online from the Renfe website. Renfe is the national train operator in Spain.
If you Google search the Renfe website, it will come up in Spanish, but you can switch it to English very easily. I have included a photo of where you need to click (a small globe) and then select the word “inglés”, also circled in red. BUT, to save you time, all my Renfe links here take you directly to the English site.
As you go through the process of ordering your tickets online, you will notice there does not appear to be a discount for seniors. There is actually one for travellers 60 and older, but you have to purchase a physical discount card before you can start booking with the discount.
As stated on the Renfe site, you can “purchase your Tarjeta Dorada, which is named and non-transferable, at station ticket offices or travel agencies.”. We have purchased a Tarjeta Dorad on previous trips when we were doing a lot more travel by train in Spain. Click on any of my “Tarjeta” links to find out more about it
So, let’s get the photos for this outing to Toledo started!
“Carrousel” Once again I am using a “Carrousel” format to present the photos in the best possible manner. If you click on the first photo (top-left) in a grouping, the whole thing pops up allowing you to click through the collection of images in a large format.
Strolling Around Town
The Plaza de Zocodover is a good place to begin your wanderings around the city. From there you can head up Calle Comercio in the general direction of the cathedral. The cathedral is the most obvious landmark in the city.
It’s a good idea to grab a map of the town, even if you are using Google or Apple Maps to find your way around. There are a number of tourist information offices. The one that we went to is in the City Hall, which closely adjoins the cathedral. They will also provide you with a quick overview of the sites to be seen in town, which might help you figure out which ones you want to get to if you haven’t pre-planned your day. Apparently, there are TI offices at the train station and at the Plaza de Zocodover, but I didn’t notice them.
In his travel guide about Spain, Rick Steves suggests grabbing the little tourist train (Vision Tourist Train) for a quick 45-minute tour and overview of the town. It also takes you across the river for a stop at the vantage point which provides the magnificent view of the city shown in the title photo for this article. We did not get over there.
The Cathedral
Toledo has been, and remains, Spain’s religious capital. The church was once so powerful that in 1561, King Philip II decided to move the capital from here north to the small town of Madrid to get away from the church’s influence.
Construction of Toledo Cathedral (Santa Iglesia Catedral Primada de Toledo) began in 1226. Architecturally, it was designed and built in the 13th century Gothic style… with a Spanish twist.
It cost us €10 each to get in. There are audio guides available.
Lunch!
Lunch was probably my favourite stop of the day. After we finished our tour of the cathedral, I whipped out my phone, fired up my digital version of Rick Steves’ Spain guide and looked for a suggested restaurant close to where we were. We ended up at the “Sucursal del Botero”. It was a great choice.
The staircase up to the restaurant portion of the bar was roped off. When we asked if we could go up, they said no. As it turns out, they did not open up the upstairs portion until 1:30… We have to constantly remind ourselves that lunch here is between 2 and 4 PM.
We grabbed a table, but weren’t able to order food right away, so we ordered a couple of cañas (small draught beer) and chatted about our visit to Toledo so far. You’ll get a sense of how things proceeded, as you read through the captions attached to the images in the photo collection, but the highlight of our visit, was our exit from the bar.
Apparently, as we stood up to leave… the Love-Goddess walked ahead… my jacket swept the small tapas plate onto the floor, where it landed with a thunderous crash. Everyone in the bar looked over at me. I put my hands in the air and said “pardon” (sorry), and then pointed at the Love-Goddess and accusingly said, “mi esposa” (my wife). And then I hurried out. 🙂
Kind of hoping they don’t remember me the next time I pop in.
More Strolling
After lunch more wandering around the town ensued. Our first stop was at the Santo Tomé to see El Greco’s masterpiece, “The Burial of the Count of Orgaz”. The painting was commissioned in 1584. The Iglesia de Santo Tomé is a church located in the historical center of the city.
El Greco lived in Toledo for the entire portion of his life spent in Spain (1577-1614). Born in Greece, his real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos. El Greco was a nickname, meaning “the Greek”. There is an El Greco Museum in town, but we did not get to it… next time.
Next, we sought out one of the town’s many viewpoints to get a look out across the countryside. There are several scattered around the edges of the town.
We did not see them, but apparently there are long escalators to help folks get up to the upper town from the lower town. Very practical.
We’ll Be Back
We enjoyed our brief time in Toledo so much that we agreed that we would return one day and spend several days exploring the city at a more leisurely pace. That is really the only way to enjoy everything that Toledo has to offer. My only hope is that they don’t remember me at that bar when I walk through the doors again. 🙂
I have to say that Rick Steves’ Spain guide was very useful on this visit. Most particularly because I was able to consult it on my iPhone as we walked around. I had purchased the digital version on Apple books. Thanks Rick!
And now, off to Nerja!
