Madrid & Toledo

It took us about 6 hours on bus to arrive to Madrid from Seville. The bus amazingly was not that bad. There was a bathroom in there which I was wondering about as I would otherwise avoid drinking so that I do not need to go at all. But people did go and Sally said it was not that bad so if any of you ever thought of travelling long distances in Spain on a bus, it's A OK.

The way Eva and I travel, we usually book places to stay as we go along and this time it bit us on the butt as most of the places we booked up and we ended up booking a place that is our of the budget but in the middle of a plaza AND ... yup... shopping! We are surrounded by shopping and even though we were excited, we may be in trouble here. We have bought stuff already that we have to find a way to pack into our packs :)

Madrid is very lively like any other Spanish city - many plazas that have fountains in the middle, lots of shopping and tapa bars, musicians playing, statue artists... Being in the a central hotel has made it more easy to get around. The metro is awesome. It is the 2nd biggest after London but so much easier to use - maybe because we had such problems dealing with the Oyster card when we were in London. Hong Kong was way easier than London.

We were going to book a half day tour to Toledo but we dediced it was more flexible and less expensive to take the metro to the Plaza Eliptica where the bus station is. Again, we seem to have a knack of making on the bus right on time as we just ended going into the bus without getting a ticket. He said our Metro ticket was good (but that is if we got the combo ticket which we did not - I believe). The bus travel was about an hour and I met a wonderful woman named Sarah from Italy who was on the bus with her students. It made the bus trip to Toledo faster.

Toledo is so pretty. It was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the cities that we have been in. Even though there were many tourists in the village, it was quiet enough to hear the birds singing. It was just a nice, small and cute place that I would love to visit again to even just sit and people watch. It was just peaceful altotgether. We did not visit the castle as it was under renovation but that did not matter. Just beautiful!