Spain: Day 3, day trip to Toledo

 Remember, start at the bottom :)

Then we started our walk around the other half of the city. Umm, literally. We decided to walk down to the Tagus river and walk on a trail for a little nature. Well, it turned into a survival hike of sorts, in that I wasn't sure if I was going to survive :) . We finally made it back to that original bridge where we crossed the river, climbed up to it, and slowly trudged to the train station. It wasn't even 4pm and I was completely worn out. I think I have ascertained that 5-6 hours of walking up and down hills is my new maximum... maybe 120% of my maximum. Our tickets back to Madrid were for 9pm, how's that for an overestimation of capability? Well, live and learn. We bought new tickets and hopped on the train back. Not as long as I thought it would be, but a fantastic day.

We walked half way around the city and then went inside the medieval wall to grab a very late lunch (or as they call it in Spain, lunch).

Alcazar up close-er. It so big, you can't get real close and still get a picture.

And of course a lot of Bailley just being Bailley.

We did tons of walking, plus it's quite a hilly town. Beautiful pictures any where and any direction you turned.

Most of the monuments and sites we walked around, but we did go into Catedral Primed Santa Maria de Toledo. Just spectacular and the pictures don't do it justice. 

The streets were very narrow and sprawled in lots of directions with plenty of dead ends.

Still plenty of hams too, LOL.

Yeah, easy to see why the whole walled, old section is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A short walk and Alcazar leaps right out at you.

The small train station was so ornate.

Right off the bat, you can see all the cultural infusions and differences. Toledo has been (is?) shared between Arab, Jewish, and Christian populations.

The day started a tad early (my doing), with a train ride at 9:20am Madrid Atocha to Toledo.

Spain: Day 2... more exploring and Prado Museum

 The editor inserts pictures oldest at the bottom, so I'm going to stop rearranging all the time... so just read from bottom to top.

Ha, funny story. On a few walks, I had seen Museo del Jamon. That was one of the bocadillo places I researched before the trip. But the entrance was tiny, no hanging hams, looked like a tiny nook of a tourist trap... man, I was so disappointed with the web vs. reality. But as we walked around Plaza Mayor, we see what appears to be the main entrance, what I had been seeing was just some small access door. WoohooOO... definitely stays on my list of places to hit :) 

Lastly we walked through Plaza Mayor.

We had been wanting to try churros here and we finally did. This one place has been serving churros for over 100 years. They were served with a chocolate sauce, oh my. 

Dinner was at Saint Michael market. A bun with Spanish chorizo, cone of fried shrimp, and some empanadas.

Just another pretty European alley on our walk back toward the apartment.

They didn't allow photography inside the museum, so I snapped one as we left. So many works from Goya, Rubens, and Titian. The place is so large, it's daunting.

We chilled at the park awaiting our ticket time at the Museo Nacional del Prado. 

We've been using these fountains scattered about. They reminded us of the ones in Rome.

We went to the Palacio de Cristal.

It had lots of fountains and a lake with tons of people rowing.

on our way to Retiro Park. The park was huge and just beautiful.

and Puerta Alcala..

We walked past the Palacio de Cibeles...

Then we took a nice stroll down Gran Via. This, as you can tell, is the big, main shopping area. The architecture was still really pretty.

Started full day 2 with a breakfast at a coffee shop inside a bookstore. Cute little find by Bailley.

Spain: Day 1, time to explore some

 

First full day, so time to explore a bit. Hmmm, I guess the flip side of dinner at 9pm and late nights carousing in the streets is that not even coffee shops open until 10am! There's a wonderful little coffee shop ~50 ft from the apartment, El Perro De Pavlov, which I have been taking advantage of. 

OK, coffee and a pastry then off to explore. I was Sunday, so there were pop up markets basically at every street or open area. So many tents selling beautiful fresh flowers.

We slowly (due to me) made our way to Saint Fernando Market. Wow, a bit overwhelming with the choices and number of people, but we finally found a spot. Sangria? check!

We saw some others order food and asked the waiter what it was. Carne mechada con patata. Hooo boy. I might come to Spain just for that.

My shoes weren't doing my feet any favors as we covered the miles. So a cut over to see Toledo Gate and a hop on the metro to make a stop at the apartment.

The metro is so so nice and so easy to use.

After a short rest and change of shoes, we were back on the streets.

Walked by Real Basilica de San Francisco el Grande.

Then down to Catedral de Santa Maria.

And the Royal Palace of Madrid. We have tickets for a tour of the Royal Palace on Saturday, so more to come on that one.

On to the Templo de Debod...

and the park surrounding it. The park was lovely and the views were terrific. You can see in the background all the prior sites we went by.

And lastly, Plaza de Espana on our way to dinner.

Quite the day exploring. I'm starting to get somewhat of my bearings.

Spain... travel day AUS->LHR->MAD

 The flight over was nice and smooth. Flying so close to the equinox and so far north, the sun never completely set. Even being in the economy (cattle) class was quite enjoyable, as it's just nice to be out traveling again.

The airport in Madrid wasn't busy, so getting through immigration was a breeze. Bought a metro pass, made my way to the metro station and was on my way to find Bailley.

We met at the La Latina metro stop since she had already checked into the AirBnB and I had no idea where it was even :) .  The apartment is really nice and in a wonderful location.

A nice stroll through the old section (El Centro) to James Julian Becerro for dinner and my first jamon bocadillo. The waitress was very helpful... I saw that cheese was extra and thought, hey, I'm going all out so 'yes'. She tried to tell me 'no' and she saw I was confused so she used her phone to translate... her words were "to add cheese onto this ham is a sin." We took her word and were very happy with the order. Man, I thought being from the south I knew about ham... nah, the Spanish *know* about ham. 

We walked around a bit, but then back to the apartment so I could collapse and try to recuperate from the trip.