We had decided against going away for the whole of the long May weekend due to a multitude of tasks to sort in the flat and a general fatigue from the last few weekends away. I couldn’t face another weekend with 4-6 hour motorway journeys at either end.

Instead we did decide to get out of Madrid for one day and go over to Toledo which, despite it’s close proximity to Madrid, is somewhere I’ve never been to.

It truly is a stunning city, raised on a mound surrounded on three sides by the river Tajo. Steeped in history and full of varied architecture this is definitely one for the site see-ers. Ambling through the tight and twisty old streets really is quite something.

Unfortunately the sheer numbers of people all visiting took away a lot of the magic of the place and with the major attractions either closing at 2pm or being overpriced meant we didn’t get to see so much.

After the whole day wandering about in 25 degree sunshine we were pretty exhausted, but we chose to stay around to get some good photos as the sun was low in the sky, and at night where there was promise of the whole city being illuminated by flood lights.

Before this however we stopped for an evening meal. Ignoring tips from our guidebook, we selected a reasonable looking restaurant with a traditional looking menu. Unfortunately this turned out to be the low light of the day. The combination of warm beer, undercooked chips, bland food, staff who took away the starter before we’d finished left us pretty annoyed. The meal was no better than your average workers cafe 7 Euro menu del dia, but four times more expensive. The only good thing that came about that meal was this pic:

And after all that waiting around for the night photos, the buggers only switched on half the lights…