Beautiful day at Wareham, Dorset, England.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Keinton Mandeville, Somerset, England.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Birmingham, England on May 19th!

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

We're actually a little ahead of schedule

Yesterday. we did the drive to the small city of Toledo, located just south of the big city of Madrid. We don't have to be at the ferry port in Bilbao until May 6 which is still three and a half weeks away.

So we're actually a little ahead of schedule. If we drove directly there, we're only 500 kms (300 miles) or so from Bilbao, but we've got quite a lot of things to see along the way, plus we're going to do some zig zagging to get up there. 

Here's our approximate route since we arrived in Spain...



First thing we did on our way out of Consuegra was to get some fuel. I had read that the area has some of the cheapest fuel in Spain, and coincidentally Max was getting low. So I filled up at €1.41 ($2.07 CAD) per liter ($5.82 USD per gallon) which is definitely the lowest we've seen since we got here.

Not the most exciting scenery along the way. 

Grape vines.




Castillo Almonacid de Toledo.

It's an unrestored castle ruins. I wish we had stopped to have a look!

The highway entering Toledo.

The Alcazar in the old town dominates the skyline.

The only problem is that Toledo doesn't have any really good motorhome parking. There are a lot of places that you can park... but none of them stand out as really good. There's a campground nearby, but they want (and probably get) €38 ($56 CAD, $41.50 USD) a night which is highway robbery by local standards. 

But, we did find a busy parking lot at a sports center where we felt Max would be safe enough to leave behind for a couple of hours. 

First on the agenda was to go to the National Police to try and get this three week extended stay in Spain sorted out. I'll detail it all in a future post, but we didn't get anywhere once again.

Then we walked back through the old town.

Ruins of a 1st century Roman archway.
Those Romans sure got around.

Old door.

Cathedral tower.

The Cathedral is so big I couldn't fit it all in!
Unfortunately they wanted €10 each to see the inside.
Not that much of a priority to us.

Old town Toledo is located on a steep hill.
They actually have a series of escalators to get from the newer part of the city up to old town.

Looking across the river.

The Alcazar.

Entrance to another church.

We only did a quick walk around to see the major sights, but so far we're impressed with Toledo. Surprised you don't hear about more people visiting this small city. 

We are headed back today on a mission. My father spent a day or two in Toledo during his 1954 trip here, and so we've got four or five photos that we are going to try to match up. It should be interesting because a lot has changed!

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2 comments:

  1. Nice to see! Thank you...There's a famous painting of Toledo by El Greco, and I looked it up to see if the sky line was comparable. It was painted 400 years ago. But the main problem is that he just changed things up to suit himself! https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436575 I'll bet you have better luck with photos from the '50s even though a lot has changed.....I look forward to seeing them.

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    Replies
    1. Somebody had already mentioned the painting by El Greco "View of Toledo" and believe it or not, it is similar to what is. You can see the resemblance to the painting once you have seen and walked around Toledo. I like the painting. It is best known for the way he painted the sky.

      We think we were pretty successful with our photo match ups!

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