53.Toledo, Espana

We are well on our way north now.  We are not going to Madrid - too hot and too busy.  Instead, we will continue to trace the UNESCO World Heritage sites as we head for Bilbao and San Sebastian and ultimately into France.

Toledo is about 85 km from Madrid and is in the Spanish region of La Mancha.  This is the home of Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha.  

As the sign says, we are on the route of Don Quijote.

Here he is!  I know it's a bad photo, so much reflection in the sun, but I only took one.  

Toledo is famous for its metalwork.  It made the swords and shields and armour for the Spanish kings and the Spanish army for centuries, and there are still remnants of this type of industry.  So Toledo was always valued by the Spanish kings because of its arms industry and a town that is valued had money spent on it and in it.  

It is fabulously well preserved.  It was originally the capital of Spain, but the court moved to Madrid at some point, and never returned.  People have always made their homes in the historic centre, so it is not just an area "for show". 

This is the Alcazar, originally the military fortification for the city and now the Museum of the Army.  You can see how well it looks.  We had to park in an underground carpark, but at quite reasonable rate - 3 euro cents per minute!  We found our way to the main square which was a bit underwhelming, except...............

....... what's wrong with this picture?

Leaving the square we walked on, up and down the streets.  Every step is either up or down; nothing is level.  I loved the canvas sun-shades.  They work extremely well when you don't have trees, and these shades have been doing the job for many years.

We had lunch in the back room of this little bar where the owner was very keen on bullfighting.

More shading ... more narrow, hilly streets ...

… and lots and lots of cake shops specializing in marzipan …

We stumbled across this small church that seemed much more welcoming than the cathedral, so in we went.

It had a beautiful courtyard with an upper and lower cloister.  We were struck with the likeness to some of Gaudi's roof decorations.

Another view of the lovely courtyard that is obviously someone's great joy.

And another taken from the upper level - that's a well in the middle.

The historic influence of the arabs is very evident and every courtyard has at least one orange tree.

We finally found the El Greco Museum (I say "finally" because signage and tourist maps continue to be very poor) but they would not allow any photographs at all, not even of the building itself.  

 

But these are the ancient tunnels underneath the building that houses the museum.  One must assume that similar structures exist under many buildings as current buildings are often built on top of the foundations of earlier buildings.

These are the walls of previous dwellings, dug into the slopes of the hill, built layer upon layer.

Overall Toledo was very interesting.  The huge number of tour buses bringing tourists the 85km from Madrid for day trips, is evidence of that.

Next - Segovia, about 100km north of Madrid.