This was a seven week road trip that would result in an impossibly long single piece so, as with other long trips, for convenience it has been divided into eight separate posts. The several Parts will be published, in order, at regular intervals over successive weeks.
Part 1: Prelude, Structure of the Trip and Practicalities
Part 2: Catalonia (Aiguablava) and Madrid
Part 3: Toledo
Part 7: The North West: Puebla de Sanabria, Cambados and Pontevedra
Part 8: The North West: Ferrol, Santiago de Compostela and Heading Home
TOLEDO
Length of Stay: 5 Nights
The ancient cities of the Meseta Central have a certain superficial similarity whilst each retains its own character. Thus each has a historical old town which sits atop a bluff or hill that speaks to its early need to provide an easily defensible position in case of external threat. This old town is encircled by walls and is a fascinating array of narrow streets and alleyways with the key buildings (usually religious) standing high above the surrounding buildings. Visually the overall sense is of soft brown stone that acquires a glow in the early mornings and at dusk. The superficial similarity hides a wealth of difference at the micro-level. So to Toledo.
With high-speed trains running every hour form Madrid’s Atocha station and a journey time of only 36 minutes and a driving time on the autopista of just an hour, it is not surprising that Toledo swarms with tourists both on day trips from the capital and those coming for longer stays. That means it was important for us to take our time to absorb the history and atmosphere and find times of day to wander around the old town when the crowds are less. Despite its obvious attractions, this is not a city that feels overwhelmed by tourism, although it must form a substantive part of its economy. Yes, the cafés in the old town’s main square, Plaza de Zocodover, can seem to pander to the multitude that fills them rapidly as lunch time approaches. Yes, there are small crocodiles of guided walkers clustering round the entrances to the main sites and in the narrow pedestrian streets but with a judicious timing of visits and the standard modern tourist fallback of booking in advance online, it is easy to enjoy the city to the full.
Getting There
This was one of those trips where, to ease the strain on our bodies, some of the destination travelling could be undertaken by one of us taking the train and the other the car. And that was how we started out with this trip. Moving out of capital cities by car is normally no fun (slow, busy traffic followed by crowded multi-lane ring roads and highways coupled with dull scenery as you trail alongside bland industrial parks) so the speedy train from Atocha station was a no brainer for one of us. Atocha station in Madrid was also the collection point for our car (see Part 1 – Car Rental and Driving).
Mobility Access
Atocha station has undergone a monumental restructuring of the nineteenth century buildings in the late twentieth century to create the modern station now in use. The result is a fully accessible facility whose only downside, from the perspective of the mobility constrained, is the distances between the various elements of a station spread over several levels. Give yourself plenty of time, especially to allow for the queues that can build up to access the high-speed train platforms where security bag checks and ticket checks can slow things up. Toledo station is mercifully small and all on one level. The pick-up forecourt outside allowed us to bring the car close to the entrance of the station building. We did not need to use taxis nor the public bus system which has lines up into the older part of the city. Both are available in that same forecourt.
The Toledo station building was our first conscious introduction to the Mudejar strand in Spanish design. In the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries this decorative style overlaid Islamic-derived elements onto Gothic and Renaissance architecture and interior design. Like its cousin the Neo-Gothic, it was revived in the later part of the nineteenth century. Constructed in this neo-Mudejar style, the station’s elegant 1920s building, now a historic monument, acted as our introduction to this decorative style; one that was to come to the fore for us in the decorative Mudejar torres (towers) of Teruel later in our trip.
Places Visited and Activities
Tren Touristico (The Tourist Train)
Not really a train at all but, a truck dressed up as one pulling a couple of carriages with open sides. The cities of central Spain seem to like using these trains for short (around 40 to 50 minute) circles round those parts of the city that are accessible to them. Their limitation is the fact that so much of the old towns have streets too narrow or too steep for them to get up and down. Nonetheless they do provide a gentle way to get an overall feel for the layout of the city, especially for those whose mobility issues might restrict walking in such environments. The Toledo train runs every hour through the day from 09.30 to 20.30 from the city’s main square, Plaza de Zocodover, and we were able to buy tickets on the day at the stall in the plaza. You can book online (http://trainvision.es/tour/toledo/) and although it looks like the website is only in Spanish, if you go to Venta de Entradas on this page you will find the booking section is in English. The tour itself loops around the city walls and then out across the river to the south where a stop at the mirador (viewpoint) gives great views across the gorge to the city climbing up the hillside to the Cathedral and the Alcazar on the top of the bluff.
Museo del Greco
https://museodelgreco.sacatuentrada.es/en/productos/info/museo-del-greco
You cannot miss the fact that Toledo is the city of Doménikos Theotokópoulos, the sixteenth century artist (thankfully) better known as El Greco. His paintings are stars of the show in a number of the city’s religious buildings and to see these grand paintings you need to have the patience to visit each one. And they are in different sections of the old city, a place where steep changes of levels and narrow streets can make life difficult for those with mobility constraints (taxis are few and far between and only a few streets have bus accessibility). So we chose to restrict our El Greco fix to this museum.
It is a little gem. Although it only contains one gallery of El Greco’s paintings, they include a haunting series of large portraits of Christ and his disciples. The museum was conceived by a Spanish art-collector philanthropist in the early twentieth century. The works, other paintings and memorabilia sit in a sixteenth century house that is close to the location of the house the artist lived in. It is not a facsimile of it but replicates its sensibility. The modern entrance building also contains a research foundation. This is linked to the older structure by a small walled garden that provides a peaceful place to sit.
The museum website (another terse one) suffers from the same malady as that of the tourist train. When you change the language to English the only word that changes is Comprar (to ‘Buy’) in the large box at the bottom of the page. Follow it through and the ticket purchase page is more Anglo-friendly. The tickets are almost laughably cheap at the time of writing.
Mobility Access
The museum is at a lower level within the old city, close to the walls, the river in the gorge almost hidden below the very pleasant tree-filled garden (Paseo del Tránsito) that sits across the road from the museum (useful for a sit or a coffee break at the outside tables of Taberna Tristana at its west end). The roads are flat so can be reached by taxi or, in our case, by car to drop off outside the entrance. There are lockers for bags, coin-operated but, as I didn’t have the requisite one, they just gave me one at the ticket desk. They also have a wheelchair that you can use. We did. However, within there is one hiatus to the flat, relatively smooth surfaces, manageable slopes and lift that links the two floors of the house (which contains the gallery rooms) and that is the ten steps up from the garden into the courtyard of the house. There was no option but to walk up the steps and then have the pusher carry the wheelchair up. If you can manage the ten steps then this is a lovely little space well worth some time in an area of the city where, back outside, you can also walk along a flat paved road as far as one of Toledo’s other sights, Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes, (about 400 metres). Here the road slopes down to one of the many gates in the city walls, parts of which date back before Medieval times.
Walking the City
Like many of these Meseta Central cities, the historical centre is not very large and, if you can cope with the changes in level there is nothing more rewarding than a stroll through the streets that lead past buildings mostly ancient but with (at least in my eyes) the occasional modern gem. Older residential houses, in light stone and plaster rise three, four and five storeys, crowd narrow streets and open into small squares and merge into the more ornate decoration of palaces and churches. I just wandered without any real purpose, stopping for a time in the triangular space of the Plaza del Ayuntamiento just to watch locals and tourists gently circling about their business; the steps of the seventeenth century town hall or the even older archbishop’s palace providing a stone seat in the sunshine to take in the enormity of the cathedral looming over all of us. The old city sits circled on its southern side by the gorge of the Rio Tajo (better known as the River Tagus that emerges in the Atlantic Ocean at Lisbon).
One walk that gives a little focus to the wanderings is to follow the city walls as they circle the old city. My favoured urban walking companion, the GPSMyCity app, has a nice self-guided walk (https://www.gpsmycity.com/tours/toledos-ancient-walls–gates-and-bridges-6886.html) for this. It runs from east to west, covering the northern half of the walls from one bridge dating from Roman times (the Puente de Alcantara) to the medieval Puente de San Martin. These are not walls you walk along but ones whose route you follow, wending in and out of ancient gateways and along the fascinating old streets. It is possible to complete a circumnavigation by wandering through the streets that follow the walls along the river gorge that circles the southern half of the old city, but that would add about another 3 kilometres (1.9 miles) of ups and downs to a walk of just over 2 kilometres (1.3 miles). I chose to walk this in the early morning not long after after the sun had risen and, at that hour, the city is reasonably free of tourists and you get to see the locals preparing the city for the day ahead. Children soon follow the working adults into the city, heading for school through the medieval gates. Parking in the city is not always easy but there is a free car park on the east side of the river, a walk of about 350 metres to the Puente de Alcantara. Because it is free, and therefore an obvious place for workers to leave their cars when commuting into the old city, it was nearly full by the time I arrived around 07.30.
Mobility Access
Walking around the city is just going to be difficult for those with mobility constraints. Sections allow walking on relatively flat surfaces. These include the area around Plaza de Zocodover and the Alcazar with its many eating places for rest stops, on the section near Museo del Greco covered above and the long promenade along the city walls that slopes very gently down between the old gates of Puerta de Cambrón and Puerta Antigua de Bisagra. Many of the streets in the old city are laid with bricks, not as awkward as true cobbles but not quite as smooth as paved or tarmac surfaces. If you walk along the walls from the gate across the road from the city end of Puente de Alcantara you face a hike up a hundred and more steps to where the walls reach the upper terraces. As an alternative you can use the public escalators that run up through the rock to the same place, which is itself about 100 metres down a slope from Plaza de Zocodover. The entrance at the bottom of the slope sits in a cave-like opening about 250 metres north along the road from the Puente de Alcantara.
Teatro de Rojas
This elegant late nineteenth century theatre is like a small version of the classic large opera houses of Europe with two storeys of boxes rising above the stalls and a mural covering the centre of the ornate ceiling. An online check (https://www.teatroderojas.es/en) for dance performances and concerts taking place whilst we were here threw up a thoroughly enjoyable duo of dances by Iberica Dance that combined classical dance with elements of flamenco. We had very reasonably-priced seats in one of the boxes. Space would have been tight for a tall person like me, but we did not have to share the box, so I was able to push my seat back for more leg-room. The Plaza Mayor outside belies its name (the main square) by being quite small and tucked well down the slopes from the central square, Plaza de Zocodover. There are a couple of somewhat tourist-oriented restaurant/cafés in the square with outside tables for pre-show food and drinks.
Mobility Access
Inside there were the stairs to the first tier of boxes to be climbed from the foyer but the stalls would have been much more accessible. Outside there are a set of about 10 stone steps to be negotiated from the street level to the entrance. We arrived by taxi from the Parador so were dropped by the steps. Coming back the small size of the square means no throughput of taxis. We walked up to the Carretera de Carlos V, which runs along the west side of the Alcazar and is home to bus stops and taxi ranks. The walk is about 250 metres up the old city’s brick-paved slopes from the square.
Laundromat
La Lavanderia de Santa Teresa
Or, perhaps, a way to see a completely different part of town dictated by clothes-washing needs. This laundromat is in an area of grid pattern streets lined with modern, five-storey apartment blocks with retail offer at street level that reflects the less economically advantaged residents of this area. The laundromat repeats a pattern for such places that we encounter on our travels. It is scrupulously clean, with someone there who can help fathom the use of the machines (actually pretty straightforward), change machines (taking €5, €10 and €20 notes) for use when coins are needed (which is not often, payment cards being the norm), seats and a rotation of people-watching inside and out. Wandering the neighbouring streets and taking coffee in a nearby café gives a wholly different outlook on these ancient Spanish cities and is part of what makes urban wandering so engaging – for us.
Getting Around
The public transport system in Toledo covers the buses and the aforementioned escalators. We did not use either. The bus system takes you into a few points in the old city but is not, realistically, a means to get you around within it. The streets are too narrow for the most part. Taxis offer a bit more flexibility but getting away by taxi from destinations buried down those streets (Plaza de Ayuntamiento and the cathedral or Plaza Mayor and the Teatro de Rojas for example) means a walk to a taxi rank on the wider streets. Having a car we worked on the basis of dropping one of us at a relevant location then searching out the nearest car park. There are more of these than you might think including two multi-level car parks built into the rock on which the old city stands and, consequently, completely unobtrusive. These are well-kept, clean facilities with toilets and information booths. Parking fees are paid at the usual machine and, to a Londoner, they were not expensive.
Parador
https://paradores.es/en/parador-de-toledo
I am guessing this is one of the more popular Paradors both because of Toledo and because of its location. Sat on the hillside south of the city it has spectacular views across the gorge to the old city, not only from the balconies of many of the bedrooms but also from the terrace where drinks and coffee can be had through much of the day. The view takes in the whole of the loop of the Rio Tajo as it curls around the old city but also extends to the newer parts of the city climbing up the further hills in ranks of the modern five and six storey apartment blocks that are the favoured for housing the servicing population of the Mesta Central. Beyond, the plain extends to a far horizon line of hills interrupted only by the distant high speed train line laid like a ruler, dead straight, across the landscape. The Parador is a low-lying modern structure that, seen from the old city, blends pretty well with the surrounding dry, scrubby bush-pocked landscape. There is a pleasing sense of space. Its location does mean a car trip (taxi or your own) of about 3.5 kilometres (2 miles) to reach the old city, a fact that meant we ate here most evenings, no hardship as, as I have mentioned above, the menu has plenty of variety and the dishes are often very enjoyable.
Popularity means booking well in advance (we had our bookings for this trip in place more than twelve months ahead of time). I have covered the generality of Parador accommodation in the Part 1 and our room, with its generous balcony, fell in with the norm: tiled floors, rugs, sizeable beds, en suite with tub and other necessaries available in room or on call (an iron and ironing board). The location also makes it a sought-after place with non-residents seeking out that view from the terrace whilst having a late afternoon drink. That means the bar can get very busy with seating occasionally hard to come by. Both here and in the restaurant, this popularity means this is one of those Paradors where staff can become slightly frazzled and service somewhat slow. Nonetheless we ate all our substantive meals there and the food held up very well over five full days.
For those so inclined there are walks through the surrounding nature reserves (much of it over quite rough ground), including a couple of miradors: rocky outcrops with views across the to the city. There is a pool but, in keeping with Spanish notions of seasonality, it was not to open until 1 June.
Mobility Access
There are no issues in the Parador or in the large, flat paved area outside which contains both drop-off and car parking. Modernity means lifts between floors. There are short flights of about five or six steps, with handrails, between the reception level and that of the terrace and restaurant.