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Toledo

June 5th

With Ramona (the car, not the weird German) firmly in charge of our lives, we left Madrid quickly and headed south toward our first destination: Toledo.



I was pretty excited as we pulled into the old, Jewish quarter of town where our hotel was situated. I threw my suit case down and informed Nic that we would now head out into the world to begin our adventures. We made it down the street and withered in the heat and lack of sleep, collapsing in a park and sleeping for at least an hour. We woke sweaty and hungry to wander the hilly roads of Toledo searching for food. Sadly, we stumbled upon a very questionable restaurant with a lot of paella and not a lot of scruples. While we shoveled bad paella in our mouths, a nearby table of Americans began forcefully objecting to their experience, mostly through the word, “FUCK.” It was weird and uncomfortable and made me hate being an American. It did not help that the paella was bad and expensive. 

This leads to the first thing Nic and I are learning to navigate here, the food. Eating in Spain is not like eating in America, or England. People wake up to coffee and breakfast - this usually includes some variety of ham. Then they eat a late lunch, like 2 or 3. The whole world shuts down between 3 and 5 p.m. Apparently everyone goes and sleeps until 7 or 8, when they wake up and go eat dinner between 9 and midnight. This has been hard on us. Vegetarianism is also hitting us hard. Restaurants here do not prioritize meatless food. I think so far pizza has been our best win. I have eaten mostly bread and cheese, and ice cream. We have both been hungry and thirsty - and tired.



Toledo is incredibly beautiful. From our hotel window we could see down into an incredible valley onto the Tagus river. We were both in awe of this beautiful view. Nic had visions of fishing; I had visions of running. Instead we stayed in the AC and stared down.






Toledo is famous for its swords.


And ham.


And sweets.





These were taken from our hotel window.






This losing a day at the front end of the trip really left us scrambling. It has definitely impacted how we felt physically and emotionally. I had planned a day to rest in Toledo and tool around. With that day lost, it really pushed our timeline. 

Knowing we had another early morning the next day, we tried to rest and had a late night tapas before heading to bed.

We rose the next morning to an amazing feast at our hotel. I had avocado toast - with ham. (I took it off). It was splendid. Eating really does make me a better person.

I really appreciated the leather making of this area and the quiet, tranquil streets. It was magical to wander in and among the hallways of their lives, seeing a world completely foreign to us. The town is constructed mostly of narrow streets and walkways made of stone. Houses stack upon each other in a labyrinth of streets and paths. These led us to churches and buildings that were truly incredible.

Things I would do differently: I would plan and actually show up for two days in Toledo. I would visit the El Greco Museum. I highly recommend our hotel, San Juan de los Reyes. It was truly divine.

We had to leave all too soon, and headed out for Grenada.


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