Day 03 - Toledo

After a short train ride to the town of Toledo I spent the next six hours walking around and getting lost in her twisting streets. Below is a picture of it's cool little train station.

While most of the tourists proceeded to be herded from the trains and onto the big red buses to be chauffeured up the hill to the town I preferred to walk the half mile or so. It gave me a chance to view the city as if I was approaching it like people have done for hundreds of years. You miss so much on buses.

There is an ancient Roman bridge crossing the Tagus River which surrounds the town on three sides.

And now begins the long trek up the stairs. I walked a lot of stairs today in Toledo. My legs are really feeling it now and it makes me regret not exercising more often.

The Alcazar

Part of the fun of travel for me is getting lost in little towns like this. Thankfully I have a pretty good sense of direction, and if I get too far lost a safe bet is just to walk up hill and you will eventually get to the town center.

This is the hart of the town right next to the cathedral.

The Toledo Cathedral is very impressive. I'm always astounded at the work that must have gone into building something like this. It's simply bigger than life. I'll go into more detail of this cathedral in a subsequent blog post.

I headed up hill to the highest point in town at the Iglesia de los Jesuitas.

Considering it was only 3 Euro to get in I was really pleased that I had the first ten minutes to myself in this beautiful church. It was so quiet and peaceful.

On my way up to the twin spires at the top of the church I got this great view.

Definitely one of the highlights of my visit to Toledo was this amazing view from the highest point in the town. In the distance in the center is the Alcazar and you can see the cathedral to the right.

I finally reached the opposite side of the town where there is another bridge that crosses the Tagus River after it circles around Toledo. It takes less than an hour to get from one side of town to the other.

The Monastero de San Juan de Los Reyes sits atop the hill overlooking the river.