Touring Toledo

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Today we visited Toledo's historic quarter.  Toledo is the oldest city in Spain, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its age, history and cultural heritage.   Don Quixote passed through here on his route through Spain.

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The city dates back to the second century.  It is said to be the city of three religions, as Christians, Muslims and Jews coexisted at one time, evidenced by the many churches, synagogues and mosques in the city.  It is truly a scenic place.  It sits up on a hill surrounded by the Tagus river. 

The city is a labyrinth of narrow cobblestone streets, surrounded by shops, private homes and churches.  It used to be gated and guarded, but the entryways are now open.  

Our local guide Elena took us on a walking tour through the area, up hills and down stairs and through skinny streets with cars.

There are obviously some traffic restrictions--this pole blocked the street but retracted into the ground when a car approached...I'm not sure how it's triggered, but an interesting way to control traffic that I haven't seen before. 

At times you'd have to stand sideways to avoid being hit by a car!

The Jewish quarter of the city was marked with small tiles that designated the boundary area where the Jews lived and worshipped.   

We went inside a synagogue from the 1300's, 

We were able to view a famous el Greco painting in Santo Tome church. 

And then we visited Catedral Primada one of the main attractions in the area. 

The cathedral will be celebrating it's 800th anniversary!  It is a massive and quite magnificent structure, with altars and chapels everywhere.  They still celebrate mass on the weekends.  There are 11 organs and often there will be organ concerts inside.  There is an impressive choir loft with two organs--I bet the acoustics are unbelievable.

There will be a huge celebration and parade on August 15, the Assumption.  They will carry this statue and 400 lb. tabernacle through the streets.  

It's hard to describe the interior of this place, because it was so big with so many different areas.  One altar area beneath the choir loft had ornate seating surrounding it which dates back hundreds of years.  Pictures don't do it justice.

The ceiling of the sacristy was a beautiful painted scene, and more paintings surrounded the room, many by el Greco. 

The 800 year celebration will be a big deal.  Preparations are already being made.

A return to the hotel after the tour called for a trip to the nearby Aldi's for water and cookies before we leave the area tomorrow!

...And a little about this tour and our group:  Eclipse Traveler is a company that follows solar eclipses around the world, and is the company hosting this tour.  The president and founder, Cengis Aras (from Turkey) is with us, along with two astronomers, David Eicher and Lou May, and and our local tour guide Rigo (who is actually Cuban, but lives in Spain now.)  

Our group is made up of 38 people of various ages from all over the country.  As you can imagine, it is an outgoing and interesting group.   Here is a snapshot of some that we've met so far:

• John has been to 21 total solar eclipses around the world!!  He is also retired director of the Challenger Space Camp program. 
• Ellen is an anthropologist who once researched cocoa beans for making chocolate in Madagascar. 
• Bob is a photographer from Cal Tech who worked for the jet propulsion laboratory and also sold a photo of the last eclipse to the Smithsonian  
• Lori is a mechanical engineer who used to work for the Department of Defense and then worked for Mattel.
• Jim is a retired political strategist who has travelled around the world
• Lyn is a lawyer who worked on "deals" and has lived in London, Iraq and other places and can speak Russian.
• Steve used to be a tugboat captain on the east coast.
• Martha was a special ed teacher.
• Cecil is a painting contractor.
• Rachel is an ObGyn nurse
• Natalie is an attorney from California 
• A brother and sister are here...the brother treated the sister to the trip as an 80th bday gift!

PS.  It is very hot here, so I've been very happy with the personal Walmart fan I bought before we left!

Buenos Dios from Madrid and Toledo!

 Our flight from Indy to Philadelphia was delayed by almost an hour, so we didn’t have much time to get to our connection in Philly--They were already boarding when we got to the gate!  

We hurried on when our boarding group was called, and in the first row of first class sat Justin Timberlake!  What a way to start the trip.  I did not have my camera ready to steal a photo, nor did I have my camera waiting to capture the crowds of people waiting to get a snapshot of him leaving the customs area of the airport.  I was tempted to wait around for him to show, but we moved on.

It’s hard to imagine that you can leave home at 2pm, have dinner on a plane thousands of miles over the Atlantic Ocean, get a quick snooze and wake up 3,700 miles from home-- and you’ve lost 6 hours along the way!

Customs was a fairly simple process; however we are used to more signage and directions, especially signs that we can read!  We've found that there are not of lot of English speaking Spaniards, so we fumbled around trying to find our way.  

Our challenge was to get to Toledo, about 1.5 hrs south of the Madrid airport.  We decided to take the adventurous route...the subway and the high-speed train instead of a taxi.  It was quite an adventure.  

We were able to get to the central station in Atocha with the help of a nice guy who could help by pointing.  But then we had trouble figuring out how to get a ticket on the high speed train to Toledo.  They had a customer service center that looked like the Bureau of Motor Vehicles--take a number and wait.  By the time we were able to get our train tickets, the next three trains were sold out, so we had a 3.5 hour wait for one with available seats.  During the wait we had lunch and celebrated international beer day with a Spanish brew.

We finally made it to our train.  Luckily there were assigned seats--we were in coach 6, seats 85 and 87, so it's hard to determine how many people were on this train.  Judging from the line to board, it was a whole bunch of people! The other challenge we had was hoisting that 48 lb suitcase into the overhead bin!  We definitely got our workout in today.

We arrived at the Toledo train station that looked more like a cathedral than a station.  We found another couple from our group (we could tell by the yellow luggage tags), so shared a taxi for the short ride to the hotel.

We were so happy to get to our hotel - Palacio Buenavista, where we were greeted by our tour director.

It is a very nice boutique hotel with a great view out our window.  The view doesn't show the 102 degree heat of the day!

We were able to get a quick shower and a one-hour nap before our 8pm dinner.  We met many of our group (more about them later) with such diverse and interesting backgrounds.

Dinner was delicious! When they brought out the chicken salad appetizer, we thought it was dinner!  The main entree was sea bass followed by a wonderful dessert.

Needless to say, it didn't take long to get to sleep.

Getting Ready!

 We'll be travelling again soon!  We've been going through checklists, checking weather, checking schedules and squishing things in a suitcase.  We'll be gone for 42 days this time with quite an itinerary.

This is actually a combination of two trips.   We booked the RV trip to Scandinavia over a year ago.  Then we found out about a total solar eclipse in Spain which is happening a week prior to the RV trip.  We experienced the solar eclipse in Indianapolis in 2024 and it was a very dramatic and emotional event for us. Since we were already traveling across the ocean, it made sense to add a week onto the trip and see if we could capture the excitement of another eclipse.  So here we go!

Packing is a bit tricky, as the first week of the trip is expected to be very hot, with temps in the 80's and 90's.  The second part of the trip temperatures will range from the 50's to the 70's.  Thank goodness we can take a checked bag AND a carryon.  But I only have room to take 4 pair of shoes!

Here is a snapshot of where we'll be going on each tour:

Spain Solar Eclipse

Scandinavia tour

We leave from Indianapolis at 4:45 pm, travel through Philadelphia and arrive in Madrid at 9:30 am.  There is a 6 hour time difference, so hopefully we can get some sleep on the plane.

The Indy Airport was very easy…my bag checked in at 48 lbs—I could have stuffed in one more pair of shoes! 

We zipped through security—almost too fast—but that’s okay!  We are at the gate and READY!