Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report Part 2

Carrying on, please allow me to first give thanks where it is certainly due. Although I gained much insight and help from many within this Forum, there is one particularly special person who I owe a great deal of thanks to, as do many of us. We used her files for Madrid and Seville and followed her advice as often as we could and she was on the mark most every time. She single-handedly made our trip that much more special through her knowledge, warmth and generosity. Maribel, thank you so very much for how much you helped us. I was very sorry to hear about your Mother and can only offer to you my deepest condolences. This Forum is rich with individuals who provide advice and help to many others, but there is a real void in expertise and spirit with your absence. I hope you will find peace and comfort in the weeks ahead.

We took the Metro to the bus station for Continental bus lines. We chose the bus rather than the train as I had read that the rail line is under construction and is not the best way t get to Toledo from Madrid at this time. I had looked at the scheduled times beforehand and noticed that there appeared to be one Express trip from Madrid to Toledo during the day at 11:00am so that is the one we went for. This turned out to be a very good decision as we got to Toledo in about 45 mins, just before noon. The bus was very comfortable and the ride was quite nice. From everything I had read on this Forum it seemed to be the consensus that the best way to experience Toledo was to stay the night and explore the city once the throngs of day-trippers have left. This was sound advice for two reasons ? Toledo does take on a mystical charm once the sun goes down and when you are staying the night you do not feel at all rushed during the day as you really have no schedule that you are required to adhere to.

We got off the bus and headed to our hotel ? the Hostal del Cardenal which was fantastic. We loved all the places we stayed at during our trip which was lucky for us ? well, it was part luck and largely thanks to lots of reading and researching and spending time on this Forum. The Hostal del Cardenal was a wonderful retreat with amazing gardens, fun history and our room (210) was fantastic with a large balcony overlooking the incredible gardens. After checking in we were off to discover Toledo. We ambled about, had a very good tapas lunch at a place that seemed to be frequented by locals and was a bit off the ?main drag? but very busy. This became our proven formula when choosing places to eat ? look for places that were a bit off the main drag, seemed to be populated with locals (as much as you can tell such a thing), and was very, very busy. Generally this formula worked very well for us and this time in Toledo was one of them. We also often resorted to simply looking to see what others were ordering and then would call our waiter over to our table and would point to the order and ask for ?Uno?. We also had a Spanish / English pocket book that was an invaluable tool for us, especially while dining.

From lunch we visited the impressive, yet being renovated, Cathedral. Still, I am always awed and impressed any time I set foot inside one of the amazing Cathedrals in Europe ? to imagine the work that went into each one is humbling. Following the tour of the Cathedral we had fun simply wandering around the historic walled city and imagining what it must have been like those very many years ago. Before heading out for the night I went for an amazing 8 km run on the outside of the walled city, especially enjoying getting around to the ?backside? of Toledo to see it as it was captured in the famous El Greco painting. This was my favorite run during the whole trip as the views that I was afforded were enough to almost make me stop in my tracks ?except that once I stop I have a hard time starting again. As was suggested by Maribel, before going to dinner at the Hostal del Cardenal, we took a taxi to the Parador and watched the sunset from their outdoor patio looking out at the walled city of Toledo. Truly a highlight and a great way to share a couple of sangrias. By the way, we decided early in our trip that 3 servings of sangria qualified as our daily requirement of fruit recommended by the Canada Food Guide. Once the sun had set we headed back to Toledo to have dinner at the Hostal del Cardenal. The dinner was fine, but I think we both realized that we are more tapas eaters than we are fine diners. There seems to be more fun and personality at the tapa bars. After dinner we wandered around Toledo and enjoyed the magic and mystery of Toledo by dark and felt that the city was ours to discover. Done exploring, we retired to the peaceful sanctuary of the Hostal del Cardenal ? a fantastic place to return to.

Woke up the next morning to go for the same run since the scenery was so spectacular. I know that many would prefer to not exercise while on vacation, but I find it great on two levels ? first off, it makes me feel better about eating all the food and drinking all the drink during the rest of the day ? as well, you see so much more of the places you are visiting during a run. Following the run we grabbed breakfast at a local grocery store (which we prefer to do over doing breakfast at a restaurant) and then headed to the bus station to get back to Madrid to get to Seville. The ticket guy told us it would take one hour, however we stopped at every little village along the way and our one hour trip took nearly two. This would not have been a big deal normally, except that we were tight on time to make our AVE to Seville and if not for excellent connections from the metro stop at the bus station to the metro stop at the train station we would have missed our train. As it was, we only got there without about 10 minutes to spare and were very glad we had purchased our tickets ahead of time. The AVE to Seville is very nice and sitting in the ?Tourist? section is just fine ? and 2 ? hours later we arrived to Seville! Aah, Seville.