TOLEDO, SPAIN – OCTOBER 2014 (PART 1)
The first half of my day trip to Toledo from Madrid when I visited last October. Toledo is a gorgeous, hilly, historic city, and I hope these photographs are a bit immersive in experiencing the winding roads, passersby, and atmosphere!
Enjoy!
This was our day trip to Toledo on October 21, 2014 – you’ll see here a mix of iPhone photographs and photos taken on my DSLR. Sorry if that’s disorienting! I thought about splitting it up, but I don’t think there would be enough variance in what we did.
I’ll have a little poll at the end so you can vote on a format.
Catching an early train from Madrid -> nearby Toledo.
The train ride was less than an hour.
We’ve made it! There was a lovely shot of Toledo from a distance approaching the city that I couldn’t catch in time, but you can see that it’s really a swirling multilayered city surrounded by a river.
The train station was beautiful in its own right.
My dad had it all planned out to catch a taxi up to an entrance gate to the walled city. Here’s a bit of a better view of the sense that the town is up above you.
Panorama whoopsies
Here’s where we were dropped off by the taxi, I believe this is called the New Gate of Bisagra.
Once you walk through the Bisagra gate, there’s a little courtyard and a view of this gate
Dad is always way ahead or far behind taking photos.
We made our way uphill, Toledo is very hilly.
Along the way we passed a pharmacy (where I bought tampons! Toledo tampons!) and other more common stores.
If you look between the buildings, you can see own onto the narrow streets below.
Still chuggin’ uphill
I’m very charmed by this tiny version of the larger tree growing on the other side of the bench. So delicate!
We’ve reached an overlook point! You can see the edge of the Medieval wall
Here’s a better view, and you can see the two greenish towers of the second gate we walked through.
I wonder what the packed green space is, it’s almost like the town doughnut with a green space missing.
Here’s a 14th Century Moorish gate that leads up to a plaza in the center of the city
Walking up towards Plaza de Zocodover
Down the stairs towards the Santa Cruz Museum
How can you be annoyed in front of an icecream shop?
Dad inside the Santa Cruz Museum
A view from the inner peristyle courtyard of the Santa Cruz Museum
Gorgeous brick detailing
There were fragments of what appeared to be of Roman origins scattered around the courtyard.
There were also examples of various patterns and designs in tilework along the walls
Just exploring open spaces!
Toledo dog!
Afterwards we walked out to a lookout point. My dad was trying to see a fragment of a Roman aqueduct.
Takin’ a stand
Winding our way down these steps
The aqueduct is in this photo, but in the dark space. SORRY!
If you look very carefully at the shadow here, I believe you can see it
Stare at the shadow Zach. Stare.
Tiny cat alert!
Painted on balconies!
The building facades were usually not white and textured, so beautiful.
Just to help portray the size of some of the streets. So narrow (but yet we saw many cars jetting around)
And potentially the oddest thing about Toledo (or a connection I haven’t really made yet) is the amount of knives and swords and weapons sold in EVERY tourist shop. Swords from like…Lord of the Rings characters. So bizarre. But there were shops everywhere! Anybody know why?
You can see a part of the Cathedral poking through
The backside! Highly photographed by my dad.
Winding our way to the front entrance of the Toledo Cathedral
I’ll end the post here with the outside. I’ll have to do the second half of the day another time! Sorry!
Thanks!
Much love friends.
SLEEPY WALDO 