Day 20 in Toledo

We stayed two nights in the beautiful Parador in Toledo. We had a great breakfast and then drove into the city. From the Parador the layout of the city is obvious as it sits on a hill within full view. Once in the city it is a maze of small streets with the one way direction always in the wrong direction and do not enter signs on the streets in the direction we want to go. We found a parking garage to place the car and walked into the city. We always seem to use these garages with uncertainty. We sometimes stay for several hours for 2or 3 Euros and sometimes, like in Barcelona it was $35 overnight. They got us for $14 for the afternoon in Toledo.

We had a walking tour in one of our books. It started at the cathedral. Like most the cathedrals we have seen it is so huge and so surrounded by other large buildings that it is hard to appreciate or even see well. We walk around the high walls, look at all the portals, stare up at the figures projecting out from ledges high in the air and photograph the high steeples.

From there we tried to follow the walking tour map. We usually manage to find everything but few of the streets are labeled and they go in every direction. The walking tour covered several places where El Greco lived, where he worked or where his paintings now reside. There are many churches and museums on every walking tour. Today we admitted that they are all starting to look the same. Every town seems to have a cathedral, a fortress and a castle.

Jan likes to look at all the things in the shops. Today was Sunday and the only shops open are those for tourists.

Today we spent a lot of time sitting in plazas watching people. In a tourist town, and this is one of the most popular, there are always large groups of people following their tour leaders with a stick or umbrellas raised high.

We never hear any English as there are few Americans. We met our first American tourists today in the hotel. They were Asian  but they were from LA. It was nice to hear someone speak English. We have met very few people that know any English and none that can speak it fluently. We are still amazed at how young the children here learn Spanish.

After a pizza in a sidewalk cafe we came back to the Parador. With the classy bar and beautiful patio looking over the city it is a popular place for locals to gather on a Sunday night. We enjoy watching all the activity. The Spanish people like to spend time socializing with their friends and family.