DAY 5: Toledo & Madrid

A Day of ancient history and back to Medieval Times!!

The sleep was ok even with the endless chanting from the old elevator outside the room. Breakfast was a lot richer than the French Bread this time! Overnight supermarket danish pastries and croissants with OJ~ Wow! Just couldn't be better!

First stop was the bus station at Mendez Alvaro. Compared to the train service, the bus company did a very good job. There were buses departing for Toledo every half an hour. No queues at the ticket offices (with clear signs in English on which booths to go to too), no need to wait for the next bus, seats were pre-assigned (though I did not aware of that until someone spoke some Spanish to me in an unfriendly manner) and there was no traffic congestion. In an hour's time we arrived at Toledo's bus station.

Once at the Toledo's bus station, you thought you were just in an ordinary European town... peaceful and quiet with style....... but not the stuff I was looking for! The old city Toldedo was nowhere to be seen. According to LP, there should be a bus no. 5 that would take me to the old city. The only clue I saw was a sign by the escalator, saying "Bus No. 5" (with an up arrow). So naturally I went up the escalator to the ticketing hall, thinking the No. 5 bus would be outside the bus station.

Having combed the surrounding 1km radius of the Toledo bus station on the ground level, I still couldn't find any no. 5 bus stop. The clue just stopped there! So I backtracked (reluctantly) to my first and only clue (ie the sign downstairs) and at last I realized that the "up arrow" actually meant going forward... Near the end of the dimly lit tunnel underground I finally found the legendary no.5 bus stop!

It turned out that I was not the only one (misread/confused) as I met an Indian girl while waiting for the bus, who also had a hard time finding the bus stop. During the short bus journey I realized that she was more of a professional than I was as she didn't even bother to plan her trip. I remembered when we got off in Plaza Zocodover inside Toledo, she (sorry forgot her name) said, "Ah, this looks like a nice place, I think I would stay here for a while!" -- "Sleep where you like, leave when you like"...... the idea sounded so cool to me~ I'd wish I could do the same too!

Well she was the first person I really had a conversation with since I last talked to Vicky et al. (Well those conversations that ultimately led to monetary exchange did not count~~ aka shopping, ordering for food) But sadly the chemistry did not go well and the rendezvous only lasted as short as the journey from Toldedo bus station to Plaza Zocodover. Having wiped my eyes with a piece of Tempo (yes i brought these HK tissues along), I regained myself and continued my journey forth.

The old city of Toledo is self-contained within its city wall on a hill. It was declared as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1986 and was the former captial of the Spanish Empire and is also a place of co-existence of Christain, Jewish and Moorish cultures. As the bus entered the old city you could really feel you went back in time to the Medieval Ages. All the buildings were still kept in the Medieval styles. Most of the streets were actually alleys that had the width of a car.

As Lonely Planet's map was like an ancient manuscript, (in fact this was not the first time!) I immediately went to the tourist office to get a not-so-ancient but an equally abstract map of Toledo. The office was actually a corner of a souvenir shop in the Plaza Zocodover.

Also in the plaza I saw the McDonalds and a kebab shop. Since Toldedo should have traces of the Moorish culture, I settled my lunch for the kebab. (EUR 3) Well, it seems that when the Moors left this place, they surely took away the secret of making good kebabs with them too.......=_=

While I was eating the "even-worse-than-a-british-kebab" kebab, I saw people trying out the Segways in front of a Segway rental stores. Since the alleyways were so narrow that cars would not be a convenient mean of transportation; the townsfolks here thought of introducing a tour of Toledo by Segways! I thought this was a really cool idea until I found out that the tour was led by a Spanish-speaking tour guide....

Alternatively you could just pay 5 Euros and could enjoy a 10 minute session of "testdriving" the Segway in front of this rental shop. (Yes, you were restricted to the plaza only; no, you can't do a 0-60km/h speed test! sorry mate!)

My first stop was a photo with a statue of Cervantes (Author of Don Quixote de la Mancha), then to Museo de Santa Cruz which the Renaissance architectural style was more interesting than the contents it exhibited. According to LP the museum was supposed to show arts and paintings but I olnly found myself some pre-historic left behinds of the early Spanish settlements (e.g. a pair of mammoth tusks) [I hope I didn't go to the wrong place?!]

After that I went uphill to the highest point of the city, where the Alcazar was cited. This was the squarest Alcazar I had seen in Spain. (i.e. boring with no style!) Franco turned it into a military museum after rebuilding it when it was destroyed during the republican siege. Now it was closed for renovation to allow them to move the army museum from Madrid to here.

Even though the military museum was not yet opened, I could still see signs of arms and armoury everywhere in Toledo -- within the souvenir shops!... Toledo was renowned for the excellence of its swords, shields and armours. Those fine steels were finely crafted and were very impressive and I almost had the urge to strap one to my back and brought it home.(If only they had the Darth Vader's light sabre.....) actually the swordmakers were really up-to-date, they even had the sword that was bore by Aargon (the one from The Lord of the Ring), with all the Elven runes crafted on the blade.

Another type of souvenirs found in an abundance inside Toledo was ceramic tablets/tiles. Each tablet had a painting of either an alphabet, a number or a drawing with nicely decorations. So you could easily buy the whole lot to play scrabble with them in the hotel if you were bored. (Each tile was 1 Euro each, so if you would like to compose a love poem from them, it would surely costed you a fortune, and not to mention how you were going to carry them back all in one piece instead of turning them into more pieces!)

The Cathedral de Toledo looked good from the outside (The bell tower "the belfry" was the tallest in the city!) so I paid EUR 6 to go in. Besides that, I had no memory of what was inside the Cathedral (Come on, I had been to so many cathedrals in the whole trip!) Oh yes, another thing I remembered was I saw a Segway Tour in action and those kids just zoomed past the front of the Cathedral while I was getting a ticket. After all the climbing and panting in the city for the whole afternoon, that was the first time I regretted of not renting a Segway earlier.

After the cathedral it was merely an exercise of orienteering (ie got lost in the maze of alleys while trying to go to a destination). During the exercise, I was "chased" by a car from behind because the alley was so tight that there was no room for me to stop by and let the car squeeze past. (I swore that the car driver was lost too but just couldn't find a place to U-turn or 3-point turn!)

I also came across a marzipan outlet (which turned out to be operated by nuns). It was rumored to be so secret that you rang the doorbell and handed in the money and a hand would give out the goodies.. no faces were shown, no eye contacts were made during the whole process. (and no questions asked!)

There was an El Greco's trail that you could follow to see his works and his past but I only had time to drop by Iglesia de Santo Tome, where his masterpiece, "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz" was housed. Though not much of a fan of him, I paid 2 euro and went inside. There was nothing but just the painting. To be honest the painting was very impressive and the texture of the material (e.g. silk) was very well re-created using the oil painting technique. According to the tour guide, he and Cervantes disguised as part of the crowds in the picture.

It was nearly 16:00 and I started the journey back to the bus station. From the "map" it seemed the station was very near and it was downhill so I decided to walk along the outer city walls... However, the Spanish heat was never to be underestimated. With a lack of water (no shops around the outer city walls), brilliant sunshine and with WC nowhere to be seen (I only saw a public toilet before lunch in Plaza Zocodover in the entire city!), I finally gave up (almost collapsed) at the entrance gate and "hitch-hiked" a bus back to the bus station. (yes, "hitch-hiked" because there was no bus stop there... but still got to pay! EUR 0.4)

To my surprise, the bus station that was originally nowhere to be seen turned up within 2 minutes of the bus ride..... Well, at least I finally made it to the bus station.

Although I have purchased the "return ticket" before in Madrid, I had to hand-in that "return ticket" (actually it just looked like a sales slip from a supermarket purchase) and the staff would issue a brand-new ticket (and in fact reserved the place for the bus)..... I almost didn't do this step and was going to board the bus straightaway.... Phew! that was lucky! If that bus was full I had to wait for another bus.

The reason for the rush was because of ....... Santiago Bernabeu!

If you didn't know what Santiago Bernabeu is, then maybe the names like Figo, Raul, Carlos, Beckham, Ronaldo and Zidane would ring the bell....Yes! Real Madrid... Santiago Bernabeu is the name of their stadium and also home of their football club.

Since I have been to Barca's Camp Nou, there was no reason why I shouldn't check out their nemesis'. So I "finished" the Toledo trip early and quickly rushed to the stadium.

Getting there was a lot easier than getting to Camp Nou from the metro, as the stadium was quite next to the metro exit. As it was approaching the closing time, I quickly went to the stadium shop to mind my own business. Because there were lots of football stars in Real Madrid, there were no lack of personalized souvenirs... man you could see people queueing up for getting their T-shirts printed/ironed. The templates for the popular stars (like No. 5, No. 23, etc) were sold out and the lady had to "line" up the letters individually to make the name on the T-shirt.

For me I settled for T-shirt key-chains (with the names of the stars on them) But only one Black Ronaldo and one Black Beckham was left, and no traces of Zidane whatsoever. (Zidane had the good-bye match in this stadium just before he left for the world cup about a month ago) There were plenty of Raul and Carlos....... no sign of Owen neither because he left too early~~

After the shopping I managed to squeeze myself in for the self-guided stadium tour just before it closed. For EUR 9 , I got to see the players changing room, coach's seats and the restaurant. Although the size of the stadium was smaller, the tour was better as you got access to places that you wouldn't allow in Camp Nou. (At least I got close to the goal posts here)

The gem of the tour was really the museum at the end of the tour. All those tropies and medals shined in the "Hall of Mirror" and many of them had the player's name on it. The finale was a showcase of the current players' boots and their autographes.

I noticed two things: There was no prayers room so they didn't need last minute prayers. There were no full-size figure-boards (like Ronaldinho's in Camp Nou) for you to take photos with and no bogus trophy for you to hold and take photos too.... A slight disappointment here~

Dinner was eaten in a buffet restaurant (Fresc Co). I initially thought that I could try all the local Spanish Specialities for just 9.7 euro.... Well, it turned out that the only special stuff was Gazpacho (spanish soup? cold and sour, not sure if it had tomato in it) and the rest were just pasta and salads..... On a positive side, I could eat lots of veggies and fruits on that night.

When I went back to the hotel I decided to go to the internet cafe nearby to check out the train schedule for tomorrow... but too bad that it was closing when I reached there (It was only 21:55 at that time!)

At night I saw the live TV broadcast from Valencia that the Pope had come to visit Spain... What a coincidence! but why couldn't he come to Madrid? Why didn't I go to Valencia? So close, yet so far~

Germany beat Portugal 3-1! Yeah, you bastard! (I do not support Germany, but I just plainly hate Portugal)

My foot prints: Mendez Alvaro (Bus Station), Plaza Zocodover, Museo de Santa Cruz, Alcazar, Toledo Cathedral, Iglesia de Santo Tome, Santiago Bernabeu, Goya

Stay: Lisboa Hostal Madrid (EUR 39, single room)