Day 4 had us leaving Madrid behind, picking up our rental car (a cute, zippy black and white Fiat Abarth) and heading to Toledo, about 1.5 hours from Madrid. We liked Madrid a lot, but the free breakfasts at the hotel were the same every day and a really rude group of tourists had arrived over the last night which made the whole morning at the hotel pretty unbearable.
We had decided to take the metro to the Chamartin train station to get the car and experienced some minor issues getting the right tickets. Sam had to get a lady to help us, and we determined that we may have lost a few Euro in the transaction, but we got it figured out.
Leaving Madrid was fairly easy. It helps that you drive from the left front seat and on the right side of the road, just like in the States, so there wasn’t as much of a learning curve as in some of the other countries we've visited. Traffic wasn’t too bad, and I quickly got the hang of the signs and such in Spain, which definitely look a little different, but they all make sense, and we’re using turn-by-turn Google maps, so it’s not like we have to be able to read Spanish well.
We arrived at our hotel, Cigarrals de Caravantes, just outside the Toledo center, by about noon. Our room wasn’t ready yet, but we were able to drop off the car in their free lot and head to the city center, only like 30 minutes of a walk.
We had a cool approach as we walked, at first, gradually downhill, roughly the view from the famous El Greco painting. We crossed over a really cool old bridge called the San Martin Bridge with a river far below, then we were in the city. The city itself was a GIANT, steep hill, with tiny streets and a mismatch of medieval buildings. As we walked (seriously, completely uphill) toward our primary objective, the Cathedral, we first stopped at a place for lunch. Sam got a salad that the waiter assured him was vegetariano, but when the salad came out, it was like 50% tuna! In China, we’d learned that the Chinese don’t consider tiny pieces of pork as "meat", so we’d had some situations where something “vegetarian” might have contained tiny bits of pork. Apparently in Spain, they don’t always consider tuna to be against the vegetarian diet. It all worked out though, as I had ordered some artichoke and tomato skewers, so we simply switched appetizers. As an interesting aside, our waiter was super into a '90s Brit-pop band. We know this because he basically played and randomly jammed out to an entire CD while we ate. The lyrics were in English and included some rather suggestive and inappropriate lyrics. So that was fun!
We ended up sort of touring the cathedral twice. We rented a pretty good guide that gave us a history of the cathedral, though it was a little cheesy in some places with the narrations turning into silly voices. Our trusty Rick Steve's guide provided the 2nd (a bit more rushed) tour opportunity, but mostly gave the same insights, though there were a few more interesting bits we enjoyed, which Ricky is pretty reliable at providing. We were able to see more works by El Greco, Goya, and Valasquez, who all had pieces in the cathedral. Afterward, we made a point of "getting lost”, since we didn't really have any other specific plans. We found a place that sold Mazapan and grabbed a few traditional pieces for later.
This town is very pretty and has sweeping views of the valleys surrounding it. While wandering, we found a Manchego cheese museum and discovered a brief history lesson, glass of wine and tasting of three Manchegos each (aged 3, 6, and 12 months) was only €3, so we signed up. Our host was super nice. She spoke very little English, but was enthusiastic and did a great job of using hand gestures and other imagery to help us when we didn’t fully understand. After that, we had a pre-booked wine, cheese and oil tasting just up the street (you know UP). The lady who provided the tasting owned the little shop and was very knowledgeable about the varieties of wine available in Spain. Sam would laugh because the lady kept calling red wine ‘corpulent’, which means “full-bodied”, but when referring to a human body, not a wine. It was a bad translation on her part, but it was hilarious and charming. We enjoyed a long walk during sunset (how is everything uphill in this town?!) and though we hadn’t been hungry much after the cheese tastings, we decided to grab something small at the hotel restaurant which ended up being just okay and way overpriced. The only item on the menu that Sam could eat was a salad that ended up basically being a baseball of mozzarella cheese on a pile of mixed greens. And though Sam had specifically said he was vegetarian, they brought out a plate of pork pate for our complimentary starter. I got baked cod which was good, but not worth €16 considering the quality and size of the dish. There was some entertainment, however. A British woman was sitting near us and had ordered what she thought was “yogurt”, but the dessert came out and turned out to be a whipped cream mousse thing. The lady COMPLETELY lost it and shouted at the waiter that she was lactose intolerant and the translation was wrong on the menu because that wasn’t yogurt. If she was lactose intolerant, she couldn’t have either, right? We laughed a little. We ended the night cuddled in blankets on our balcony, drank wine, ate our mazapan, and enjoyed the view from across the river.
We got up pretty early on Day 5 so that we could get on the road by 8am. The view from our room was pretty extraordinary as the sun was just coming up over the iconic building in Toledo. Though the views were great, we determined that this had not been the best hotel, main due to an uncomfortable bed and the fact that there was no seal on the shower door, so half the water ended up on the bathroom floor. But c'est la vie! That's all part of the adventure, right? We got on the road toward Navalmoral de la Mata to see my friend, Whitney, who I went to college with. Whitney has her own English academy in Navalmoral, which is super awesome and impressive!
We encountered a light rain the entire way, but it was still a fairly easy drive. We even saw the brightest, most complete double rainbow and another Bull billboard (there not a lot of advertisements and billboards along the highways like there is in the States, so seeing a huge silhouette of a bull is pretty unusual). When we got into Navalmoral, we needed to find parking. We had to loop around a tiny roundabout a few times, but finally found a spot for our teeny-tiny Fiat and as luck would have it, Whitney was walking by right as we parked! She walked us to a favorite restaurant of hers called La Avenida and she helped us order two cafe con leche, tomato tostas, and fresh squeezed orange juice - all was muy bien. We also got to meet Whitney's friend and fellow teacher at the academy, Isabel, who was really delightful and we talked and laughed about their recent trip to Missouri with some students and differences in culture between the U.S. and Spain. It was really cool talking to a local. After breakfast, Whitney gave us a tour of the town, which only takes about 10 minutes to walk all the way across it. We swung by the academy, which is super cute! Whitney also showed us a few shops in town, including the grocery store, which had so many interesting products. We vowed to grab a few when we could for the days that we're in hotels that don't provide breakfast. As we goodbye, Whitney pointed us toward Merida (which we'd have to go through any way on our way to Sevilla) and mentioned there was a large collection of Roman ruins there--right up Sam's alley. We decided we'd stop over since there wasn't anything we were rushing to get to in Seville.
Merida! Once we arrived, it felt like a mini Rome. The town was founded by Augustus and had an ancient Roman theater and mini-coliseum that predates the Flavian one in Rome by quite a bit. We also explored the longest still-intact Roman bridge and the Alcazar, which was around during the 713 Moorish conquering of Merida. There was so much to see! There was even an roughly intact hippodrome and aqueduct, in addition to a preserved temple in their forum. Sam was in heaven. We enjoyed lunch of baguettes and potatas bravas, then realized we'd spent nearly 5 hours in Merida! Such a great tip from Whitney!
On the way to Sevilla, we could have sworn we saw some of the famous roaming pigs eating acorns. The acorn-eating pigs are the ones used for the famous Jamon Iberico.
Sevilla was bigger and busier than we'd expected. Traffic was a little nuts, so Sam thought he'd play Enrique Iglesias' Hero in English to calm my nerves - weirdo. We found the hotel, the modern Novotel Sevilla, and freshened up before a 20 minute walk to city center. Sevilla's old town center was pretty cool with narrow, pedestrian-friendly lanes and lots of shops and restaurants. We got dinner at a veggie friendly place that was busy, and ordered some local wine, Salmorejo , which was a tasty thick soup, kind of like gazpacho, but it's thickened with bread, so the consistency is different. We also enjoyed veggie sushi, truffle hummus, and eggplant sachets.
We ended the night listening to flamenco and Spanish guitar next door drinking a few more wines and enjoying the night. More Sevilla tomorrow!
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