[28th September – 1st October 2023]

There are honestly times when I seriously wonder about our sanity!

Where would you pick to go as a first destination if you’d not long come out of hospital, and your energy levels had just about reached 50% of normal.  Yes, of of course, you’d come to a city built on the very steep sides of a series of commanding and defensively highly effective hills, which has barely a level horizontal surface within it.

You’d come to an apartment in the oldest part of the city, right beside its Alacazar Palace, at the highest point of the UNESCO World Heritage site that is Toledo, where some of the streets are so precipitous that they have handrails (no steps) on the walls of the buildings, and where getting down them looks almost as challenging as getting back up.

You’d come to an apartment which is an old house within the ancient old town, where traversing the short road up to the front door leaves you rubber legged and gasping for breath.

We arrive late in the evening to be welcomed by a visually beautiful apartment.  This old town house has been re-imagined in Moorish style, with subtly lit tiled alcoves, filigree metal lamp shades and many other lovely touches which refer back to Toledo’s Islamic history.

There is, however, not even a bottle of water in the fridge, and our attempts at phone communication with the apartment’s owner fail to bear fruit, in terms of directing us to a shop to buy bottled water, or giving us a sufficient supply of towels.  The latter issue is still being addressed two days later, at increasing levels of shrillness.

Fiona has to sally forth into the maze of darkened streets, taking her rope and pitons with her to help her ascend and descend the improbably steep alleyways in search of an open shop.  The search proves fruitless, although she does manage to buy two small bottles of water from a restaurant somewhere along the way.

You do get used to having to hire a team of sherpas to carry the oxygen cylinders as you head off to get some essential shopping.  And to passing the odd frostbitten corpse being conveyed down from the summit.

OK – maybe that last bit was exaggerating a little.  The urban terrain, however, does limit our ambition regarding what we try to do, and the temperatures in the low 30s clearly add to the challenge.

The most appealing thing about Toledo is its wonderful hilltop position and the spectacular vistas offered from various points in the city, especially looking back up towards the old city and the Alcazar from down close to the deep green River Tagus.  Two separate sets of city walls are in evidence, one lower down the slopes than the other.  The lower defensive wall was added as the city grew and spread down towards the river at the bottom of the valley.

Unlike another hilltop city Avila, which we visited during Trip Number One in 2018, Toledo’s ancient walls and buildings have been repaired and refurbished so that it is difficult to tell the old stone/brickwork from the renewed.  As well as just being generally less spectacular, Avila seems to have had its ancient parts rebuilt such that they appear to be scrubbed and shiny, and a bit too perfect, an effect which the authorities in Toledo have happily avoided.

On our first day, we walk across the large modern piazza which lies between our street and the Alcazar Palace and start to climb the hill towards visible shops.  We get about halfway up, whereupon I am summarily shat upon by a bird, so comprehensively that I look up half expecting to see Pegasus the winged horse smirking from behind a cloud.  The foul brown semi-liquid gets me on my cap, the side of my head, the inside of my specs, my shoulder, my back, my shorts, my valuables pouch, the back of my leg and my new basketball boots.

A passing Portuguese lady jumps to my aid brandishing a pack of tissues, with which she cleans my head and back, leaving them with Fiona to try to finish the job.  I know it’s supposed to be a sign of good luck, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.

After lunch canted at an angle on a cobbled street outside a restaurant near the Alcazar, we hop onto the wee tourist train, which seems an ideal way to start to orientate ourselves within the city.  It hurtles along a circular route lasting around 45 minutes, with only one stop around halfway through.  However, that stop affords a spectacular view of the old city from close to the Tagus.  The train seats are uncomfortable and the commentary is inaudible, but it’s a good way to get our bearings.

That first lunch and the one the next day indicate that tapas isn’t all that big in Toledo.  However reasonably priced Menus del Dia are available, and meat seems to be the order of the day – beef, deer, bull and various types of fowl feature highly.  The only problem is that they have a propensity for naming dishes in a way that gives no clue as to what is in them – Farmer’s Crumbs being a case in point – so a bit of online translation (with pictures) is necessary unless you feel completely gung ho about what you order. Nary a vegetable in sight. 

Just five minutes walk from our apartment is the Bu Terraza restaurant.  A large and buzzing bar bar/restaurant occupying a corner of a very large flat piazza between the Alcazar and the valley below, which has a great view of the floodlit Military Academy on the hill opposite.  Friendly staff, nice draught beer and good wine and cocktails make it a popular place in the evenings.  We go there twice, as it involves the minimum of mountaineering.

The next day we follow a similar route on the much more comfortable Red Bus tour of the city, with an entirely clear commentary through good headphones.  We stop at the same mirador as previously, but this time I’ve got with me a wider range of camera lenses to capture the vista.

When the bus tour is over, we decide to eat and then visit the huge Alcazar Palace.  Most of its rooms seem to include displays of militaria through the ages, which don’t appeal to us too much.  We decide we’ll just go to the allegedly beautiful central Courtyard of King Charles V, and probably also to the café for the view.

Getting to the courtyard involves us following an inaccurate map, realising this and retracing our steps, and finally having to make three complete external circuits of the building that is size-wise like a football stadium, much of the time out in the hot sunshine, to get to and back from the courtyard which turns out to be nothing special.  We then head for the café, which naturally closes as we walk through the door.  Wish we hadn’t bothered.

Normally we would explore a city much more on foot, but on this trip it’s the art of the possible, and I’m completely knackered by the end of the day.

Having exhausted my energy reserves, on our final day we decide to stay out of the hot sun and avoid climbing and descending hills. We spend a relaxing day swimming in a large and well-appointed hotel spa pool – a bit expensive, when we add up taxi fares there and back, and the charge to us as non-residents using the facility.  We also have to wear silly little blue caps as a hygiene measure, but we come out feeling relaxed and ready to get packed up, to move on via Madrid on the high speed AVE train to Granada.

My dozen favourite images from our stay in Toledo are included in the gallery below. Click on a thumbnail to see a bigger image. If you’re using a mobile phone, turn your screen sideways to see the bigger image to best effect.

Image Gallery