Yet again, I visited somewhere on this trip that was completely unknown to me and came as a wonderfully beautiful surprise.
I love it when that happens. Like in Sarajevo. And Valladolid.
It usually comes about when Scott sets his heart on a place he’s read about online and I just go along with it.
Some may call it laziness. I call it living life on the edge.
I knew I would like Toledo Spain straight off the bat when, on the bus ride to the centre of town, we passed some huge escalators built into the hillside, to make it easier for locals and tourists to get up and down the main hill of the city. It was like something off The Simpsons and I knew that any city that was nice enough to provide its inhabitants with a giant escalator so as to avoid over-exertion would be alright by me.
A Day-Tripper’s Paradise
We got lost finding our accommodation (which is pretty hard to do as it is a fairly small city), and it was at the point that an American lady showed us the way to the tourist information office that we realised just how popular Toledo is with day-trippers who’ve taken the train in from Madrid. It is very touristy, but the great thing about a day-trip town is that at night, you pretty much have the whole place to yourselves.
I actually like cities like that, because you get to see two sides of the spectrum, and you enjoy the evening or weekday peace so much more.
Swords and Sweets
Toledo is known for making marzipan (we tried a piece and it was delicious, although terribly overpriced) and the steel that is used to make swords. This should explain the number of Lord of the Rings-themed shops that are around town selling swords and memorabilia; Toledo produced all of the swords for the film trilogy and apparently some of the rings. My inner geek was kinda happy (and surprised) to discover this.
“YOU. SHALL. NOT. PASS!!!”
Ok, sorry, where were we?!
Oh, yes. Toledo. Prettiness.
The Toledo Train
We took the tourist train one evening, which winds its way, clanking and juddering, up the hillsides, allowing you to take some great panoramic photos of the surrounding countryside and the old city walls. You get a pair of headphones to listen to a commentary about the city as you ride. It was definitely a tourist trap, as the commentary wasn’t in-depth and the train moved too fast to fully enjoy the buildings, but we really wanted to get the great shots of the city from the Mirador del Valle viewpoint and a taxi was just too expensive. Luckily, the train stops at this viewpoint for around 10 minutes, allowing you to take some great shots.
I would recommend taking the last train of the evening, as we did, which runs at 9pm, as this was cooler and allowed for some lovely sunset photos.
The only thing that disappointed me about Toledo was the food and restaurant scene. We tried to sample the local dish of carcamusas (a beef-type stew), but the most highly-recommended restaurant for this was closed. Also, as most of the restaurants cater to the day-trippers, many only open for lunch. As it is summertime, I suppose some of the places could have been closed for holidays (as we found in Bologna last year), but this wasn’t clear.
Toledo was definitely a pleasant surprise and somewhere I would gladly visit again, but next time I would like to see it in the cooler months of spring or autumn and I would prefer to stay in an apartment where I can cook my own food with the great produce, wine and cheese that is available in the local delis.
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