Toledo Walking Tours?
 

A message on another thread said it's a great idea to take a guided tour of Toledo because it can be very confusing to navigate. I tried researching Toledo tours, but they all seem to involve riding a bus from Madrid. Can anyone recommend a half-day tour that originates in Toledo? Thanks!

I'm not personally aware of anyone in Toledo offering guided tours of the city, but Toledo isn't that large, nor confusing. You can pick up a good walking map at the Tourist Office in Toledo on Puerta de Bisagra and explore on your own. You can't get lost. It's a walled city. You can visit the Tour Spain web site, which offers a wealth of information on the city.

http://www.spain.info

Anybody that tells you that you can't get lost in Toledo, didn't get to the best places in Toledo. The Moorish designed their streets as a narrow maze on purpose; it is an urban cooling technique still used today by many modern architects in new developments. It was also very easy to step off the main walls on to the Arrabales (crafters main housing areas) and back into the market/traders plazas. Half-Day tours in English are offered by the Tourism Office located just off the Puerta de Bisagra. In fact, lots of hotels in Toledo can provide you with recs for guides/tours.

Going back to Toledo's sightseeing, there are hundreds of historical places in Toledo besides the Cathedral, Alcazar, Puente de San Martin, etc...Some of my favorite spots are the San Servando Castle, which is the big fortification you see from the Alcazar across the River Tajo. Also, there are the houses in Calle de Santo Tome where the old insane asylum used to be, which by the way, was the main source of "models" for some of El Greco's paintings. There is also the Ermita de la Vega; you go by it and it looks like a small chapel, but you need to know that this small chapel used to be the site of a S. IV Basilica to Toledo Saint Patron, Santa Leocadia, buried there since Visigoth times. There is also the areas of the Jewish Toledo, the Roman Toledo, the Arab Toledo. A map will give you names of streets and general direction; a guided visit will make sense of it. What is the point of visiting a place with such cultural heritage just to wandered around with a map????

Sorry, but I've never gotten lost wandering the streets of Toledo or any other city laid out like a medina, having explored Casablanca, Rabat and Marrakech when I was a bit younger. They are not that difficult, especially if you have a good sense of direction, an understanding of their design, a decent walking map and are not afraid to talk to the locals. Getting lost in Philadelphia or Los Angeles is a lot easier.

And yes, almost any tourist office in Spain can recommend a local guide, but few of them advertise their services.

Thank you both! I do love the variety of opinions this site affords. . . There seems to be agreement on heading straight for the tourism office, so I'll be sure to do that.

My hotel (Hostal del Cardenal) said they will book us a guide for about 125 euro, but I'm hoping the tourism office can offer a tour for a bit less!

Robert- you either missed my point or choose to ignore it; makes no difference to me. When it comes to Toledo, grabbing a map and heading out to wandered the streets without a sense of what are you looking at is a sad waste of time. You could do that in hundreds of places, NOT Toledo, Spain.

You can wander the streets with or without a map if you have a good guidebook. Or even without, come to that. Like another poster said you can always ask a local, or read the plaque on the wall. It helps, of course, if you are going to adopt the latter approach if you have lots of time.

It's a matter of taste - if you like the idea of being shepherded around - get a guide. Otherwise just do your own thing. You won't get "lost" - you might walk a lot further than you need but you will always find a familiar landmark eventually. Isn't that what it's all about?

I was about to post this question myself. We usually do the guidebook-in-hand walk but in Toledo I think I would like a walking tour. I am wondering if anyone has the name of a guide that I might contact before we arrive in the city? Has anyone taken guided tours here? I know about the Wellington Society but they are very pricey and their tours of Toledo seem to originate in Madrid and include transport from that city. (For 275E.!!)