Spaintugal: Madrid and Toledo

The speedy train was able to get us to Madrid in a quick 3 hours.  I wish the USA had more train options like that!  Checking into our apartment in Madrid was little more complicated since they would not meet us at the apartment.  Rather than make all 8 of us drag bags around the city to get the key and then drag them back to our room we decided to split up.  Mom and I headed off on the metros to go get the keys while everyone else caught taxis to the apartment.   While it seemed really annoying at the time it ended up not being that much of an issue. 

We quickly settled into our apartment and then headed out to explore Madrid.  I guided everyone on an abbreviated version of a walk on the way to the Royal Palace. We walked to Plaza Mayor, through a fancy market, saw the old town hall, and the relatively new cathedral.  Once we made it to the palace we stopped in for a visit.  

I thoroughly enjoyed this palace visit with it’s history and the fact that it is currently in use.  Inside was gorgeous but of course they didn’t allow pictures.  We had to settle for fun pictures in the Royal Palace courtyard.

 After the palace, we settled in for our first dinner in Madrid.  Overall, we didn't really like the food but the atmosphere and the after drinks made it a fun experience.  They even gave Jacob and Hailey their own cups to drink with us.

The next morning we caught another high speed train for a quick 30 minute ride out to Toledo.  This beautiful town is south of Madrid and was at one point the capital.  First we took a hop on hop off bus around the outskirts of town to get some great pictures.  

Once we made it into the old town center we headed for the cathedral.  Overall, this was just another cathedral.  But there was one specific area that really stood out to me as something different and impressive. Behind the high altar was an impressive amount of artwork.  We also spent some time in the Army Museum but that turned out to be pretty boring and we didn't last long.  For the most part we just enjoyed walking the streets of Toledo. At the end of the day we caught the train back to Madrid. 

The next day was really our only full day in Madrid.  We had a walking tour scheduled for the morning, which ended up being one of the best walking tours I’ve been on.  Our guide, Jennifer, was from the US but married to a Spaniard and had lived in Spain for 15 years.  She was excellent in telling the history of Spain and pointing out food and local culture that we would have missed on our own.  We re-visited several places but ended up with a whole new experience.  Jennifer took us back through the market but pointed out traditional desserts and foods to try.  We even went into a tiny church and bought pastries from cloistered nuns.  Cloistered nuns are not allowed to be seen by the public so you buy stuff from them through a lazy Susan type window.  We also stopped in an old style bar to have a specialty drink and treats.

After the walking tour we had some lunch and then headed to the Prado museum.  I'm not a lover of art museums but with the Rick Steves' guide through it making it short, sweet and to the point I generally enjoyed the Prado.  Even with that we still didn't go through the entire Rick tour and decided we'd rather cut out early walk the streets of Madrid some more. Since Madrid is the capital they have a spot in the "center" labeled kilometer 0.  Supposedly all distances are measured from here.  It reminded me of the "all streets lead to Rome".  We just enjoyed our evening wandering the streets until it started to rain.  That evening we had dinner at a restaurant that Jennifer recommended which ended up being one of my favorite meals!  I'll have to get the pictures from the grandparents since I didn't take any of my own. It was a great ending to our time in Madrid.