Travelled : 110 miles from Cuenca to Toledo, Provence of Madrid
Visited : Toledo (the old town), The Cathedral โฌ12 double, El Greco Museum โฌ12 double
Stayed : Toledo municipal carpark, no services but an excellent location. N39.864587, E04.019547
Expenses : 54 days @ โฌ80 per day.
After a second look at our guide books we decide on a couple of days in Toledo rather than Madrid. Madrid just doesn’t look that good from a camper car perspective and historically Toledo has a lot to offer. We depart Cuenca and head west on the A40. Another fantastic Spanish freeway. Over a 160 kilometres without a traffic light, stop sign or crossroad. The terrain is harsh and arid, rolling ridges pass by but the only colour is the dune red rock and ploughed earth that looks very sandy.
Toledo, Spain
We stop for a camper car coffee in a little village and arrive at Toledo in time for lunch. Our GPS has found an approved car park just below the old town. It huge and just about full of cars, but up in the far corner we join several other camper cars clustered together. We’ve been here long enough to know there’s no use getting excited, this is Spain and nothing will be open until 4pm. So we have a little siesta ourselves before heading up the hill.
Kindly enough the city fathers have installed a line of 7 long escalators on the hill side adjacent to our car park which we will use several times. Old Toledo stands on top of a hill, it’s fortified walls can still be seen here and there. Originally roman you would be surprised to hear (from 192bc), it was held by the Moors (from 712ad) until El Cid regained the city in 1085. The city however remained open and enjoys a large Jewish quarter, a couple of Mosques and a Cathedral and numerous churches.
Our first afternoon is the tourist office and a walk up the narrow lanes looking at the tourist tat, shops selling swords and armour seem popular. We find a little cafe and enjoy a drink and pizza before doing the dance of the seven escalators again. We chat with an English couple who have pulled up behind us, there on their way to Malaga (sounds good). We enjoy a quiet night and get ready to do it all again tomorrow. Next morning we are back on the escalators again, we spend an hour in the Cathedral which was huge, but the audio was poor and we were lost most of the time, visiting the Greco Museum and Gallery, the Synagogue and Mosque.
It’s been another long day, we eat in and hit the hay early. Unfortunately the local Neds (young boofheads) have other ideas and about 1am the load music starts and that’s the end of the sleep. An hour later we move up the road and made the best of it behind a service station. After more than 10 weeks on the road we haven’t done too bad and it’s was a Friday night.
Michael and Pam
