I’ve actually visited Toledo twice now, once in December of 2016 and once in March of 2018, It’s a great little town and if I didn’t recommend visiting, I wouldn’t be writing about it!
Lucas had already been before so he was my guide. We hopped on the bus from Madrid to Toledo with our student transport cards (I can’t rave enough about those cards by the way). It’s about an hour ride and super pleasant, through the Spanish countryside, but as a narcoleptic I have to admit that I slept through most of it.
The bus drops off at the edge/bottom of the city, and you have to go up a crazy long escalator to get into the city. At the time it was the longest escalator I had ever seen, it felt like we were on it for a good 5 minutes, but I’m quite certain I’ve been on longer escalators now in China and Russia.
We wandered through shops and streets while Lucas pointed out all of the examples of Arab, Jewish, and Christian architectural influences.
We went to La Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz, the Mosque of the Light of Christ. Does that name sound a little weird to you? It is a tiny little Muslim Mosque built in 999 that was converted to a Christian Cathedral much later. The architecture, both inside and out is so distinct.
The best part of Toledo though is the cathedral. You would never expect anything like it from such a small city, but it’s the most beautiful cathedral I’ve ever seen, even many years, and cathedrals later.
Most of my pictures were taken on my phone, so I had to steal one to really show it.
You can spend HOURS in the Toledo Cathedral with an audio guide, so be careful if there’s more you want to do!
To complete our triad, we also visited the Synagogue of Santa MarÃa La Blanca, which is widely considered one of the oldest synagogues in Europe. The really significant part about it though is that it was built while the city was under Christian control, by Islamic Architects, intended for Jewish use.
By this point we were starving, and we tried to find a little restaurant that Lucas had eaten at before, but after wandering around hunting for it, we finally gave in to hunger and stopped at the first affordable one we saw – Corral De Don Diego. It turned out to be one of my favorite restaurants throughout Europe!
I don’t think the restaurant itself had anything really spectacular to offer, but it was magical to me. I had a salad with tuna and pomegranate arils, called an ensalada mixta that I immediately became obsessed with, but somehow I never had one quite as good again.
The best part though was that there was a guy playing accordion there (which I love). I took a little snapchat video to remember it.
When we went back with my brother in 2018, we sat at a cafe so Lucas could use the wifi to finish a project, and I heard another accordion that seemed a little too familiar, and I managed to catch the EXACT same bit of the song on video. It was straight up from the twilight zone.
We had a really late lunch (as usual, it seems like we always end up eating at weird times) and had just an hour before sunset, and decided on a whim to zipline across the river. I think it was only 10 Euro, and I figured why not?
We wandered through town in the dark, sat at the edge of the river looking at the lights and then walked back to the bus station to head back into Madrid!
Finding Eden 