Five months in UK/Europe and we're already bored of visiting major cities. The problem with major cities is that they're all the same; trams, metro, museums, people, etc. Luckily, there's still many treasures throughout Europe to be found, such as Toledo in Spain.
Back when we booked our trip to Madrid, we were a bit sick of visiting major cities. We were a bit museumed out from our visits to Paris and Amsterdam and wanted something different. That was when we found Toledo in our travel guide, and with Toledo being so close to Madrid, we decided to fly to Madrid and spend a day in Toledo and a day in Madrid. That worked out perfectly!
Our flight to Madrid was with EasyJet. The more I fly EasyJet, the more I hate it! I mean, if they're going to implement a no seat reservation policy, the least they can do is enforce a fair and orderly queuing for boarding the plane! But annoyingly, they seem to always turn a blind eye to queue jumpers, leaving the rule abiding passengers losing out - that's Darwinism at it's best for you!
Anyway, enough about EasyJet and back to the trip. The first thing we did on our trip was venture out for a late night/early morning visit to a tapas bar. One of the most popular tapas bar in Mardid is El Tigre and it is conveniently located near our hotel. As the travel guide warned, El Tigre was packed with people and it took a lot of pushing and shoving to get in. Once inside, it also took a lot of pointing and hand gestures to make our orders. When our drinks finally came, we were also delighted to receive our free tapas - a mountain of bread with cheese and jamon and a mountain of baked potato slices with a spicy tomato-ish sauce. Not knowing how much all this cost, I just gave the barman a €20 note and expected a couple of coins in return. What I ended up getting back instead was a €10 note and some coins!!! Unbelievable - all this for less than €9!!!
By the time we went to bed that day, it was almost 2am, which didn't leave much time for sleep as we were due to take the train to Toledo at 9.20am. Although our hotel did not provide breakfast, they did, surprisingly, provide free pastries for their guests and so in the morning, we stuffed down some croissants (and I also had an imitation Krispy Kreme doughnut), before taking another croissant for the train ride.
Toledo is really an amazing place. My impression of Europe has always been brown stone paved roads lined with shabby old brown buildings and sprawled with little brown alleyways; Toledo matched that description perfectly. Apart from visiting the main attractions in Toledo, we also sampled Toledo and Spain's specialties - paella, cured ham, and partridge. To our surprise, paella is an entree in Spain and seeing Spanish people eat a big plate of paella followed by a plate of steak and chips for mains, we couldn't help but wonder how they can still be so fit (yes - Spanish people are really fit)! Maybe it's their weird meal times (1pm to 3.30pm for lunch and 8pm to 10pm for dinner), or their love of tapas, who knows, but whatever it is, it's definitely my ideal lifestyle - all the eating and still have a fit body!
Our second day in Spain was spent in Madrid. We visited Real Madrid's stadium - Santiago Bernabeu - in the morning and then went back to the city for lunch. The restaurant that we wanted to go was fully booked and so we settled for another restaurant nearby that was featured in the travel guide. The attraction of that restaurant was that it offered a lot of authentic Spanish food but I must say, I was a bit disappointed by the food, and even more by the service. Afterwards, we wandered around the city, taking many photos of places like the palace and Plaza Mayor. We then hung around until dinner time and went to a jamon shop for dinner. The shop had several restaurants, a bar, and a jamon shop. We ate at the bar, where we had a jamon and cheese croissant, a jamon and tomato toastie, a beer, and a fanta, all for €1 each. We also ordered a plate of jamon iberico, which cost a little more at €14 a plate.
After a satisfying dinner, we were all set to head home, only to end up stuck in the plane for about an hour before it moved. Why? For no other reason than EasyJet's stupid no seat reservation policy!
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