Hilly Toledo!!!

Toledo's Cathedral. It looked a lot like Seville's to me. I guess as it's one of three Gothic ones in Spain, it's bound to look similar.

The streets of Toledo reminded me a lot of Italy. Very hilly and with the charm that I felt some of the narrow winding streets of the rest of Spain were lacking.

Definitely my legs felt the burn like they did in Italy from all of the steep streets.

The main plaza in Toledo-Zocodover Square

Found a park on the edge of town that overlooked the gorge around the city

So the city was like Siena and Cortona in that it had escalators up into the city walls. However, once you get up the escalators, you have to walk up these stairs, so I didn't really see much of a point as it wasn't much good for disabled people. But then again I guess if you lived/worked in one part of town and had to walk down everyday to the other part, you would appreciate the small relief of a few escaltors. And if you were diasbled, you woudl have to move as it's so freaking hilly anyways! (For the record I walked up the combination of stairs/hills to get into the city and never took the escalators, but as usual I liked the mix of modern means with medieval architecture!)

It was about this time that I realized I was really lost. I had followed a group of tourists off the plaza near the cathedral, under the archway a few photos up, and was now no where near the synagogues I wanted to see.

And while directions seemed to be posted quite a bit, whenever the road would fork into 2 different narrow winding roads in the same general direction as the sign pointed, it seemed that I always took the wrong one because I didn't even ever find 4 of the things I wanted to find. Oh well, they looked nice on the postcards!

Another archway...but different! Notice how the lanterns along the wall go steeply down...

Not sure what this was, but I passed it about 4 times when I was lost, so I figured I should get a picture.

So when the sign said esclators, I thought it would point me to the ones I showed earlier which are near the main square. Not so much...Quite a dissapointing find that they would have two sets (at least)!

Afore mentioned sign...Does the first one mean exit to the city???

Ok, so I finally found Zocodover Square again, and as it was still about two hours until my train was to leave, I decided to take Rick Steve's advice (as I often do) and ride the cheesy touristy bus for views of the city. The fact that it was only 5 Euro to just ride it for 50 minutes without getting off while the other ones were all ranging from 14 Euro-18 Euro (I think we rode them in Valencia, Granada, and Seville) had a big part to play in my decision. The fact that I had just walked aimlessly up and down hill for about 3 hours lost with no where to sit was the second part of the reason that I took the bus. This is a view of the train station from the double decker bus. The rest of the bus patrons actually got off here (first stop) using their 7 Euro ticket (it was 7 Euro if you do the hop on/off thing) as more of a taxi. Haha wusses! I only paid 5 Euro and walked to and from the train station into/out of town (about 30 minute walk up/down hill each way!). On another note, yes, I did google the word wusses to make sure it was an actual word-sort of.

More views from the bus

And wow, how glad was I that I took the bus! What a view! I kept seeing this view on postcards and wondering where the photographers got it. They must have ridden the tourist bus.

I mean really, the bus tour should have been pushed by Mr. Steves with views like these.

So I got off the bus right where I had got on and walked down a number of steps and ramps to get back to the train station.

I did say a number...

View from walking on one of the bridges to the walls of the city

So as I ran out of room in my third facebook photo album to post too many pics of Toledo (and lets be honest, no one wanted to thumb through a fourth album), I thought it deserved its own post! I was the only one who went to Toledo because I wasn't too interested in seeing the museums (Italy kind of museum-ed me out), and I'm so glad I did!