La Manche and Toledo

On the way to Toledo we stopped off to see the windmills at La Manche which were allegedly the inspiration for the story about Don Quixote. Something I’ve wanted to see for ages.

Only one of the windmills is open to the public but of course we arrived at 10 past 2, and guess what time it closes for lunch!? Ah well, never mind, we’ve been inside a working windmill before so we know what it’d look like. (We have found the siesta closing times a tad frustrating this trip.)

It was worth going there for the views alone.

We had lunch and then carried on driving to Toledo which only took a couple of hours. We’d pre-booked into a campsite just on the outskirts which was on a bus route into the city.

After Cordoba this site was at the other end of the scale of luxury. For a start it had the most stunning view of Toledo from the bar.

The on-site restaurant had a varied and very reasonably priced selection of meals.

The site had the best bathroom facilities we’d seen so far this holiday, in fact some people commented that the showers were better than the ones they had at home!

We caught the bus from the top of the drive, it was only a 15 minute journey into the center of the city.

I’m so glad we didn’t walk it as it’s very, very steep in places. It’s the only town I’ve been to with external escalators which even then only take you half way up to the old town.

We decided to start off at the Military Museum housed in two linked buildings, the city’s historic Alcázar (castle) and a purpose-built extension. The building is vast, over 4 floors and is packed with exhibits, we got lost twice so were very pleased to get out. The most interesting thing that the guide book could say about this place was that, ‘This museum contains a lot of miniature replicas of battles, and other things.’ Hmm, ‘and other things’ says it all!

The old town is quite small and has narrow winding streets which were either up steep inclines or down sudden cobbled gradients.

The Cathedral is in the centre of the old town and back in the day rather than walk round the building people used to use the cathedral as a short cut, so much so, a huge mural of St Christopher was painted on one wall so that people walking through would easily catch sight of it.

As he is the patron saint of journeys the belief is that each time you see his image it will add an extra day to your life. So we made a couple of extra walk-pasts!

This was another gorgeous cathedral with some stunning features, another skylight ceiling which allows sunlight to flood the statues below almost bringing them to life.

and not forgetting another excellent audio guide (modeled by my able assistant)

The old city is surrounded by substantial city walls interspersed by narrow archways.

We enjoyed our few days in Toledo; it wasn’t a huge city with lots of traffic fumes to contend with and better still, it wasn’t overrun with tourists. We managed to find some nice restaurants and took plenty of opportunities to enjoy the view from the bar on the campsite.

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