Toledo

A Great place to walk around:

 

With it's maze of steep and narrow cobbled alleyways,  endless impressive buildings and surprises around every corner Toledo is a wonderful place to spend a relaxing day pottering around on foot.  A bike is nothing less than an almighty embuggerance but I'm there on a bike or not at all and I wasn't going to miss out on seeing the city I'd battled through storm and tempest to get to.

The locals and tourists alike once again were surprisingly tolerant of a cyclist nudging through the crowded streets, they either moved out of the way or not but never was there any problem. (That I was aware of).

I liked Toledo, more so than Segovia.  It seemed more of a lived-in sort of place, more real.  There were tour parties but fewer and the city still seemed to belong to it's residents.  As always, I found some quiet corners. A quiet spot for a picnic lunch overlooking the Rio Tajo (River Tagus) where I was interviewed in some depth by a local elderly lady who was at some point a keen cyclist and wanted to know all about my trip.  A faltering exchange conducted in 2 different languages, Spanish and an unintelligible language I speak when I try to speak Spanish, nevertheless a charming encounter. 

I enjoyed Toledo but decided to avoid cities for a while and in fact I had little choice but to head into the hills on my journey south.  Little did I know just how many hills!

On the morning of my departure from Toledo I had some trouble finding the right road out of the city and it was only my now passionate conviction that the Spanish don't understand maps, or points of the compass that got me on my way.  I did however stop to take some photos of the city from the south to salvage something from the confusion.