After not much sleep we had to get up early to transfer
hotels before catching the train to Toledo.
We took the shuttle bus to the airport and then all the different metros
to the centre, before getting slightly lost on the way to the hostal. Good thing we left early.
The Hostal Regional was on the top floor of an apartment
block and had one of those old-fashioned lifts to get up there. When we got in to the hostal, there was an
instant over-whelming smell of incense.
Then we got to our room. It was very
basic, and not very appealing. More so
than any of the other hostals I’ve stayed in in Spain. We decided that since we only had to sleep
there and would most likely spending all our time out and about that it was
cope-able. So we dumped our bags, and
headed for Toledo, making a brief stop to pick up lunch on the way.
The train to Toledo was full.
It takes around 25 minutes to get from Atocha to Toledo. The train station is on the outskirts of the
town and there are taxi deals to take you to the centre and up the massive hill
into Toledo. The weather had started to
take a turn so the sky was very overcast.
We looked through the list of tourist-y things and decided to go to the
military museum. As we went to Toledo on
a Monday most of the museums were shut and the cathedral was over 8 euros
each. I object to paying so much to go
into a cathedral. I accept paying 3 or 4
euros as that goes to upkeep and paying staff etc but 8 euros is ridiculous. I mean it was only like 2 to get into the
biggest cathedral in Spain (in Seville) as well as to go up La Giralda bell
tower…naughty Toledo.
The military museum was free for me because I am a student
and four euros for my mum. We opted not
to get the audioguide. The museum is in
the Alcazar which was built in the 16th century was supposed to be
the home for the kings of Spain, but before it was finished Madrid replaced
Toledo as the capital of the country.
Since then it has been everything from a prison, a military barracks and
academy and housed silk workshops.
The building also shows off the old walls of Toledo which
have been there for hundreds and hundreds of years. There is a lift which gives you a view over
all the old stone foundations and the wall.
The museum itself was very extensive. Showing all the different people who fought
and conquered Spain, their tactics, weapons, the outfits that they wore, what
everything means ranging from early Bronze age up to present day Spanish
military missions. In fact the museum
was probably too informative. After the
first section – the ancient warriors – we were getting sore feet and getting a
bit fed up. We trudged up the stairs to
the more modern things but didn’t linger long in any of the rooms. Photography was forbidden, but I took the
risk (and got told off) for taking the one picture I took…I mean I had to take
it, when else are you in a room with suits of armour all in battle rows.
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| "Do your duty!" Suits of armour :) |
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| Me in Toledo |
We ate a small lunch in the museum’s café and then decided to
take a walk into the centre and look at the souvenir shops which were full of
swords and sword-shaped letter openers.
Toledo used to be where the Spanish weapons were made when Toledo was
the capital.
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| Model of the Alcazar made from Marzipan. Toledo is famous for it. |
After looking at the shops we saw a little tourist
train. For a city like Toledo which is
built on a hill using the tourist train is probably the best way to see it all
in a day. The train in Toledo costs 4
euros, and takes around 45 minutes/an hour to explain the main points of the
city. It had an English soundtrack as
well, which was narrated so matter-of-factly that the stories were extra
funny. Toledo has a strange
history. And based on the train ride it
seems to revolve a lot around fathers who are getting revenge for their
daughters rape by nobles, kings etc. My
favourite story was the father whose daughter was raped by the king; the king
wouldn’t marry her or give here money, so the father opened the city gates to
the marauding Moors. That’s revenge for
you.
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| Alcazar in Toledo |
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| Toledo is surrounded by water on 3 sides, and on a hill top...very easy to defend, unless you rape the gatekeeper's daughter. |
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| Toledo |
After the train we went to a small bar and had a drink, and
then another small wander around the town before it was time to head back to
the train station and back to Madrid.
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| The disabled ramp at Atocha...or a death slide? |
Once in Madrid again it was most definitely dinner time. We couldn’t remember where the cheap Italian restaurant
was, all we remember is that we found in during the protests when they were
shutting off all the main streets. We
ended up in a more expensive area, around Plaza Santa Ana, but as the rain was
starting we decided to just pop into a tapas restaurant. We had abondigas (meatballs) and patas bravas
(potatoes in a spicy, tomatoey sauce).
Very nice. When the bill came
they had charged us for bread that we hadn’t eaten, so boom, out comes the
Spanish and they took it off the bill.
Lingo 1 – greedy restaurant preying on tourists 0.
Getting back to the hostal we were not looking forward to our
night there. Or the prospect of
returning in two days for another two nights.
But we braced ourselves and got ready for bed. I even had a shower (wearing flip-flops) in
the pop-up shower in the room, terrified that I would get electrocuted from the
TV which was right next to it…so there we were ready for bed. And then it happened. Out from under the bed appears a
cockroach. It scuttled along the floor
and the returned to its domain under the bed.
And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We instantly cancelled our remaining
reservations, booked somewhere else and slept, in short bursts, with the lights
on. I’m just so glad that we didn’t look
under the bed. Who knows what we would
have found.
So the next morning, after not much sleep, we packed our
bags, left a note explaining that we weren’t coming back and left for
Salamanca.
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