The Photo Gallery has been “edited” a little, some of the excess photos have been removed. This is the “first cut”.
In addition, some pictures have been added to the Madrid Posting, along with a little more descriptive text.
TIP: To skip all of the “Trip Planning” posts and read only the actual posts from the trip, click on the Trip Posts Only Menu Tab above this post.
We have been adding some photos to the Photo Gallery Page. These are mostly unedited photos, unedited for quantity and for quality, and we have not weeded many out, but wanted to get them on the site and available for viewing as quickly as possible.
We will be eliminating many of the lesser quality photos over as the next few weeks go by, and will be adding captions to the ones that remain. So, please be patient while we sort through all of the photos. I know seeing 50 pictures of one sunset gets boring after a while. What can I say…..it happens with digital cameras. We also hope to post some additional photos into the daily postings from the trip, we were limited by internet time when we made the posts originally.
We have been home for a little over a week, and finally feel recovered. The hardest adjustment has been getting up to go to work, and not having someone else prepare all of the meals. Miss those relaxing days at sea.
We will be spending the upcoming holidays with family and friends, but to everyone we will not see, Happy Holidays!!
Well, Stephanie and I got the travel bug again, and now we are planning our next adventure, another Transatlantic Cruise to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.
This trip will begin with a flight to Madrid, Spain on Friday, November 6, 2009, and end in Miami on November 21. We will spend two nights in Madrid before taking a high speed train to Malaga, Spain. The actual cruise portion starts in Malaga on Monday, November 9. Malaga is on the south coast of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea, just east of Gibraltar.
We were able to use the return ticket portion of our airfare leftover from our last cruise and land trip in London, and change the dates and the destination for less than half of a normal round trip fare. We picked the starting point of the trip as Madrid, mainly because it was the largest city in Spain close to Malaga, and the airfare and flight connections were better. We fly from Jacksonville to Philadelphia, then non-stop on to Madrid from there.
The cruise will be on a Royal Caribbean International Ship, the Navigator of the Seas, instead of our normal Princess Cruise Line ships. It will give us a chance to compare services between the two lines, and have the new adventure of figuring out a totally different ship. Now we can look lost like a lot of other cruisers we normally see!
The ports of call on this cruise include Malaga, Spain; Madiera Island, Portugal; Tenerife, Canary Islands; Santa Cruz de la Palma, Canary Islands; Nassau, Bahamas, and ending in Miami. Along with the ports of call, there is one sea day between Malaga and Madiera, and six sea days between the Canary Islands and Nassau.
More to Come!!
Well, it is now mid-September, and the detailed plan is starting to take shape for the trip. The cruise and flights are set, we are departing on November 6 from Jacksonville for our flight to Madrid Spain, with a connection in Philadelphia. We arrive in Madrid on Saturday morning, November 7, at 10:15.
MADRID
Upon arrival at the Madrid Airport, we will either take the Metro to the hotel or take a pre-arranged shuttle bus. The choice is dependent on how cheap and adventurous we are (Metro for 4 Euros), or, how tired we may be after the overnight flight, knowing we have to tote our luggage through the two metro stops to get to the hotel (Shuttle for 26 Euros). There is also some concern for pickpocket activity with taking the Metro. We have read mixed reviews from travelers on the reality of this happening. It becomes a matter of being diligent and careful while riding the Metro, and safeguarding against having valuables in easily targeted places. It has been amusing, and sad to read actual stories on the Internet about some of the scams that the pickpockets use to distract your attention, pretending to be helping you, all the while helping themselves to your valuables. However, reading about other person’s misfortunes helps one to be aware of the potential risks. Pickpockets are just a reality in Europe, some areas are just worse than others.
We currently have two hotel reservations for our two night stay in Madrid, one in the old City Center, and one in a quiet neighborhood close to the City Center. Again, we have to decide if we want to get the true experience of staying in the old city center (and less cost), close to the historic sights, but, subject to the possibility of dealing with the locals who apparently like to party ’till the wee hours of the morning. Or, do we stay where it is quieter (and higher cost), but face a little more inconvenience in getting to the sights of Madrid. One good thing about the hotel reservations, we can cancel up until the time we depart without any penalty, so it allows us to take our time and finalize our plans.
After checking into our hotel, our current plan is to spend the remainder of Saturday touring the sights of Madrid. On Sunday, we are going to the nearby city of Toledo, which is the historic capital of Spain. Toledo has more of the older traditional sights to visit than does Madrid. We have already purchased out round trip train tickets for the 30 minute train trip from Madrid to Toledo. We depart at 9:20 a.m. and have a return ticket for 6:00 pm. It is only a 30 minute trip each way, so that will leave us a good part of the day to see the sights of Toledo, but still get back to Madrid before it is too late. We have already purchased our tickets for an early 7:35 a.m. departure on Monday for the 2 hour, 40 minute high speed train trip to Malaga, Spain, the departure port for the cruise.
MALAGA
We are scheduled to arrive at the train station in Malaga at 10:15 a.m.. From our research, it is about 2 km. to the port, so we will be taking a taxi from the train station to the port terminal. Our current plan is to place our luggage in lockers at the train station, and spend a couple of hours looking around Malaga. Unlike Princess Cruises, which we normally take, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line does not allow you to have access to your cabin as soon as you board, you have to wait until after 1:30 p.m., so we don’t see any need to get on-board until then, plus there are a few interesting sights to see in Malaga. Once you board the cruise ship for Embarkation, you can’t get back off, at least not easily, so this will be our only opportunity to tour Malaga itself. Our ship, The Navigator of the Seas, is scheduled to depart at 5:00 p.m.
CRUISE
We will be making 3 stops prior to the Transatlantic Crossing portion of the cruise. The first port of call is Funchal, Madeira. Madeira is a Portuguese Island off the coast of Africa. Our current plan is to walk into the city and take the 15 minute gondola ride to the city of Monte. Is is suppose to resemble the city of Sintra, Portugal, which we visited on our Honeymoon Cruise, and enjoyed very much. It is on top of a mountain, and is supposed to offer great views of the coastline. We will just spend the day there, and back in Funchal.
The next two ports of call are in the Canary Islands. At both of the ports, we will be renting a car for the day, and traveling to National Park Sites, both of which are associated with volcanoes, and are the highest points on the islands. Apparently the roads are winding, and can be slow to get to your destinations, so we will need to carefully watch our time, we don’t miss the ship. For example, one park is only about 35 km. from the port (about 15 miles), but can take about 1.5 hours to get to, if you happen to get stuck behind slow moving trucks, etc. Hopefully, since we are there late in the tourist season, and on a weekday, we will not run into bad traffic. However, the views are said to be spectacular, especially from the 12,000 ft. peaks.
Once we depart the Canary Islands on Friday, November 13, we have 6 days at sea crossing the Atlantic before arriving in our last port of call, Nassau on Friday, November 20. We really have no plan for this stop, having visited Nassau about 15 months ago. Then we depart for Miami, our last stop. We have arranged for a Hertz rental car in Downtown Miami, nearby to the port, so hopefully this will be an easy set-up. However, since we have not sailed on a Royal Caribbean Cruise, and have not been to the Port of Miami, we are not familiar with the cruise ship embarkation process and shuttle bus arrangements to the rental car office. It could be our last adventure of the trip, hopefully not too adventurous. Then we face the long drive home.
It is just under three weeks before we fly out to Madrid, Spain to begin our trip. From here on out, we will be putting the final touches on our detailed planning efforts.
We have made the decision to take the shuttle service from the airport to the hotel in Madrid. Even though it is more expensive than the metro, for the price, it brings a lot of peace of mind, and certainly will make it easier on us. By taking the shuttle, we do not have to worry about being so diligent with our luggage and personal belongings to avoid the possibility of being pick-pocketed. In addition, while looking into taking the metro, we fount out that we have to walk about a mile from our arrival terminal to the terminal that accesses the metro stop. By taking the shuttle, we get picked up right at our arrival terminal. No use trying to save a few euros at the expense of starting the vacation off with problems. We also learned from reading about the experiences of past travelers that there is a distinct possibility that many of the escalators can be out of service in the metro stops, forcing one to carry their luggage up and down stairs when making the two metro stop transfers that it takes to get from the airport to the hotel. We got to experience that “exercise” in Paris, France last spring; not much fun. With this decision, we can just sit back and let someone else load our luggage.
We have not yet made a final decision on a hotel in Madrid. We will continue to check pricing, hoping that as the date draws near, there might be some discounting, either at the hotels we have already booked, or a couple of others we are looking at. We will make the choice in a couple of weeks, probably the Monday prior to our departure.
Now it is just a couple of weeks until Stephanie and I leave for Madrid. We are continuing to get ready, I am pulling together all of the camera equipment, and performing routine cleaning of the lenses and this time, will attempt to clean the sensor in my Nikon D300 to remove all of the dust. Next will be making sure we have adequate batteries for the flash and tapes for the video camera.
We made a trip to WalMart this weekend to purchase the last remaining items we will be taking. Unfortunately, on Royal Caribbean, they do not provide hair conditioner or hand lotion, so we will be having to pack small supplies of those items. We also purchased hand sanitizer to refill all of our small travel size containers. Seems like this will be even more important than past trips with the ever constant threat of the H1N1 Virus. Before, our only worry was the Norwalk Virus, now it is both. Hopefully, Royal Caribbean will be similar to Princess Cruises and offer hand sanitizer dispensers at all of the buffet and snack eateries.
Although we are looking forward to trying another cruise line, the list of shortfalls that have become apparent with Royal Caribbean (compared to Princess), it starting to grow. So far, these are the items that will be different, some more important than others, but even small items can lessen the overall experience.
We are still keeping an open mind, and I am sure we will have a great time. It was just not that apparent to us when booking this cruise on a different cruise line that there would be so many differences. I guess this is a good reason to try something different, in the end, you get your own valid comparisons, not just the opinions of others. Even in the planning for port days, we had gotten to know and understand how Princess Cruises procedures worked for getting the ship docked, and how long it took to release passengers to dis-embark. Knowing how this worked generally enabled us to be at the gangway at the correct time to be off of the ship at the earliest moment. Thankfully, on this cruise, we are not doing any excursions that are so time specific that every minute counts in making train schedules, local buses, etc. At least this will give us the opportunity to learn how Royal Caribbean operates without having the stress of trying to actually make tight connections. Again, just another subtle difference.
Now it is only three more days until leave on our trip, but that seems like it will just be enough time to finish getting ready. Today (Tuesday) will be laundry day, and tomorrow will be our first attempt at packing. We are still trying to keep to one suitcase each, but we will just have to see how it goes when we start putting together our packing list.
We have made the final decision on the hotel in Madrid, we are going to stay in our first pick, the Hostal Oriente (This is a link to the hotel website). It is conveniently located in the historical center of Madrid, and is reasonably priced. The hotel has received good reviews on Trip Adviser, so we decided to go with it and give it a try. The only issue we have seen people criticize is that some rooms can be noisy at times. Hopefully, we will be so tired the first night (Saturday) that we will not hear anything. Then, our thought is that Madrid will not as vibrant(or loud) on Sunday nights.
We have confirmed our reservation with AeroCITY shuttle service for pick-up at the airport for the ride to our hotel. The cost for two is 23 euros. If we have trouble packing as light as we want, we might have revert to taking the hang-up bag, and the shuttle will eliminate some of the troubles carrying all of the luggage through the Metro terminals.
We have found out that there is apparently a duty free shop in the port terminal, after the security screening for boarding the ship. We have heard that this will enable us to purchase some adult beverages and be able to carry them aboard with us. This was confirmed by other cruisers via a Cruise, Critic Forum, who had recently sailed on the Navigator of the Seas in the past few weeks. Apparently the ship has been sailing from Malaga on 5-day cruises to the Canary Islands. We will still attempt to take some supplies with us just in case, but minimize the amount, and its weight and volume in our suitcases.
Credit Card companies have been notified that we will be overseas, as well as Banks for using our ATM Cards. We discovered that we had about 30 euros left over from the last voyage, so in the event there is some issues getting money at the airport, we can at least pay the shuttle service and get to our hotel. That adds a little comfort, I have had trouble getting money in the past due to the time difference, and the banks in the USA going through a computer maintenance period between 2am and 4am. That happened on a Sunday morning, so we do not anticipate that being the case on this trip, with our arrival on a Saturday.
Just a few other loose ends to take care of in the planning department for our port days, and then, we will just have to make due with the information we have.
Unfortunately, we looked at the weather on Sunday, and it appeared we were in for warmer than normal temperatures, with sunny days. As fickle as the weather can be, sure enough, we looked Monday, and it is a completely different forecast, a possibility of rain showers in Madrid for Saturday, and temperatures only getting to 58 degrees for a high for Saturday and Sunday. I guess we will just have to be patient and look on Thursday. We were hoping to avoid taking some of the cooler weather clothing, it takes more space. Out weather check on Thursday will enable us to make last minute adjustments, hopefully back to warmer weather clothing.
We purchased a couple of compact, noise reduction headsets for an Anniversary present. This should help with some of the background noise on the flights. We do have seats more toward the front of the plane, and in front of the engines, so that will also help make it quieter. Hopefully there will be some good movies to watch in the 7 plus hour flight across the Atlantic.
Well, its off to begin laundry and house cleaning, and packing the camera equipment. We should have time make one more post prior to our departure, and hopefully can post updates in our layover in Philadelphia on Friday, something to pass the time for a couple of hours. Until Then….
Well, the day has finally arrived, we are all packed, and are sitting in the airport waiting for our connecting flight to Philadelphia. It already seems like it has been a long day,finalizing the packing and getting everything squared away. Stephanie had to work, so I was at home taking care of the last minute items, mowing the grass, getting money from the ATM, getting some refreshments to take on the plane, and getting the last items in the suitcases.
We had one little glitch with the packing, when we finally got all of the items on our bags, we found they were just slightly overweight. It was a few anxious minutes trying to re-distribute items, but we finally got the weight within the 50 pound limit per bag. Unfortunately, we did not get everything in the two main suitcases as we had planned. We ended up using a small rolling duffel as an extra bag, but it will still be easier than toting the heavy hanging bag we were not taking on this trip. It took some of the stress out of packing, and gave us the alternative we needed when we had the weight issues. I guess if we did not want to have small speakers for i pod music, a small collapsible cooler, and other amenities, we most likely could have made it with the two bags, as planned.
The additional bag should not hamper us any from a mobility standpoint, it carries well on top of one of our other rolling bags.
We will be boarding soon, so I will sign off until we get to Philadelphia. We have close to a two hour layove there, if all of the flights are on time.
We made it to Madrid, Spain. It was a bumpy flight over the Atlantic from about half way out of Philadelphia until we landed at Madrid. There were just enough smooth periods during the flight to sleep a little, and to eat a hurried pastry for breakfast. The flight was almost too short to actually get any real sleep. It was scheduled for 7 hours, 20 minutes, but with the time taken at the beginning of the flight for serving dinner, we were already 2 hours into the flight before we could actually relax. With only about 5 hours remaining in the flight, and that amount of time decreased, by the wake-up call scheduled for about an hour and a half out of Madrid, there was no time for movie watching if we wanted to catch some sleep. I think we dozed on and off for a couple of hours before the sun came up. Then the flight attendants woke us up for breakfast, which was served in a real hurry. The pilots were expecting us to land about 40 minutes early, and I think that threw off the timing of the flight attendants for serving breakfast. About as soon as we got our breakfast, they announced that they were coming through to pick up all of the cups, and trash. The final 30 minutes into the airport were really turbulent.
We actually landed about a half hour early, but spent most of that gained time waiting on our luggage. We had a little bit of a scare, Stephanie’s bag was almost the last one out for some reason, so we were thinking it might have gotten lost. It did finally come out onto the belt, and that was a big relief. With our bags in hand, we proceeded to immigration, and after getting our passports stamped, we went into the main arrival area of the terminal to look for the desk for our shuttle company for our transport into Madrid
After inquiring at the airport information booth, we proceeded to the AeroCITY desk and checked in for the shuttle. We waited about 15 minutes for the driver, and off we went to the hotel. It was about a 25 minute drive through some crowded pedestrian only streets. The shuttle could drive on them only for accessing the hotel.
We could not check-in immediately, so we left our luggage in their secure area, and headed out onto the streets of Madrid. It was cool and windy outside, everyone here was bundled up.
Plaza Puerta del Sol, Madrid
We walked around and took some pictures, and headed back to the hotel to check in. We are on the back side of the hotel, so we have no view, but it is likely to be much more quiet.
Hostal Oriente – Our Hotel in Madrid
After freshening up, we were ready to head back out. We went to the Palacio Real, the Palace of the Spanish Monarchy, and viewed it from the outside.
Palacio Real
There was a line to get in so we opted to go on to the cathedral next door, partly to dodge a rain shower. It was the Cathedral Almudena, which was open.
Church
Pipe Organ
The Cathedral was really nice inside and was being prepared for a national holiday in Spain on Monday, November 9. We took several pictures inside.
When we went back outside, where we found that the weather had cleared some, and we walked around the area. There were some nice buildings and trees
Buildings in Madrid
After the Cathedral, we took the Metro to go and see another famous Madrid church, the Basilica San Francisco El Grande, which has the fourth largest Dome in the world. Unfortunately, the Basilica was closed, so we could only see it from the outside. As it ended up, we could have walked to this church from the other Cathedral, but the directions we had indicated we needed to ride the Metro.
Basilica San Francisco El Grande
We ended up walking back toward the hotel so we could visit the Plaza Mayor, another large plaza in Madrid. On the way there, we discovered a large inside market, which ended up being full of Tapas Bars, and went in for a glass of wine. Once we finished that we wondered over to the Plaza Mayor and looked around. There was not a lot going on there other than some gypsies dressed up in Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Tiger Costumes, trying to get people to pay for taking pictures with them. They were some of the worst costumes we had ever seen of those characters, obviously a copyright free imitations!!
Plaza Mayor
We went back to the room and showered so that we could go to the 6:00 Mass at the Catholic Church that we found earlier which was located about 3 blocks from the hotel. The service was all in Spanish, but the church was almost full. It was beautiful inside, it had several altars dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
After church, we found another Tapas Bar, and went in for some Jamon (Ham) and some Qeuso (cheese). It was served with bread, and we had two glasses of red wine. It was very different, but the ham was good. It is interesting to see all of the cured hams hanging in all of the Tapas Bars and other shops. They just take it down and slice it into ultra thin slices, sometimes with a machine, sometimes by hand. We will have to get a picture of all of the hams.
We wondered the streets with all of the native people of Madrid, they were out in force, shopping, and eating at the Tapas Bars and other restaurants. We finally found a grocery store, and went in for our usual under 3 euro red wine purchases. Finally, tired after the full day, we headed back to the room to relax with some wine.
Tomorrow, we train to Toledo for the day.
Today we took a day trip to Toledo, Spain. We had previously made online reservations on the Renfe Train to Toledo, and our train was scheduled to depart at 9:20 am. This was the earliest train to Toledo on Sunday. We left our Hotel at about 8:15 am and walked to the Sol Metro stop. This was not the closest Metro stop to our hotel, but it was just a little farther away, but from that stop we could go directly to the Atoche Renfe Train Station Metro stop, the station for the high speed AVE trains. We had also hoped to find something open for a quick breakfast on the way to the Sol Metro, but most everything was closed that early on a Sunday. It was actually amazing, the street in front of our hotel is pedestrian only, and all of yesterday afternoon and last night, it was packed with people. This morning, it was almost empty.
We were glad we had made this journey to the train station, since it will be a dress rehearsal for our train trip to Malaga, Spain on Monday morning. It was fairly easy and straightforward, but there were a couple of areas where we were slightly confused on the direction to go when transitioning from the Metro station to the Renfe Train Station. We ended up eating a danish at a coffee shop, and I had a typical strong European coffee.
We went through the security and sent our backpacks through the baggage x-ray and headed out to our platform to board the train for the 30 minute ride to Toledo. The train was very punctual, departing and arriving right on time. There was not a lot of interesting countryside to see on the way, it was mostly flat pasture land. We departed the train in Toledo, and walked through the beautiful Toledo Train Station.
Toledo Train Station
Our High Speed AVE Train
Outside of the station, we found the bus stop for the city buses into Toledo. We rode the city bus up to the top of the hill that Toledo is built on, to the highest building, the Alcazar.
The Alcazar
We wondered around there for a little bit trying to find a map of the city, and finally found one at an information building near the Cathedral. We knew it would have been easier to purchase a map at a kiosk in the train station, but it is not normally a problem to find free street maps at the usually abundant information booths. In this instance, it was more difficult, but still not bad. The main problem is that the streets in Toledo are narrow and winding, blocking the view of the surrounding areas, so you must have a map to determine how to get around.
Chuck & Stephanie in Toledo
The information building was also the only public restroom we had seen, so made use of the facilities. With map in hand, we started out to see the sights. We knew that the Toledo Cathedral did not open until 2:00 pm, so we started out looking for a few of the smaller churches. The first church we visited was the Santo Tome, which was famous for having one of El Greco’s painting in it. We went inside the church looking for the painting, only to discover it was in the rear of the church, and not accessible from the main part of the church. There were separate doors for the viewing of the painting, and there was a charge to see it. Unfortunately, we did not go inside, there were long lines from tour groups waiting to get in. We decided we would just continue walking around to see other things instead. We did enjoy the inside of the church itself.
Santo Tome Church
Our plan was to then head over to the Santa Cruz Museum, famous for having several paintings from El Greco. On the way we found a Jesuit Church, the Iglesia de San Ildefonso, which had two tall bell towers, offering great views of the city of Toledo from the top of the towers. There was a small entrance fee, but the inside of the church was beautiful, and they allowed photography inside, usually a rarity in Spain, and well worth the small admission price.
Main Altar – Iglesia de San Ildefonso
Iglesia de San Ildefonso
San Ildefonso Church Panorama
After looking inside, we started the climb up to the top of the towers. The view of the city was nice, so we set up the tripod, and took our picture with the Cathedral steeple in the background.
View From Tower – Iglesia de San Ildefonso
Afterward, we headed over to get a bite to eat for lunch, before heading over to the other side of the town to see the Santa Cruz Museum. We had a little difficulty finding the museum entrance, it was tucked away on a side street. However, we did find a nice place to take some pictures from the edge of the walled city before finally finding the museum entrance.
View of Area Around Toledo
Once there, we discovered the museum was under renovation, and all of the artwork had been removed. I had remembered reading about this before leaving on the trip, but had neglected to make a note of it in our Toledo information.
By this time, the Cathedral had opened, so we headed in that direction, On the way, we did a little shopping for gifts. Toledo is known for its gold embellished artwork, inlaid on a steel plate surface. the plates come in sizes anywhere from about 2 inches, all the way up to 8-9 inches. The more expensive ones were hand made, and have 24 ct. gold inlays. Others (mostly smaller versions) are made with a machine.
We finally made it over to the Toledo Cathedral, it is an impressive building from the outside, but since it is in the middle of the town, there is no particular area where you can get a good overall view of the outside of the building, the streets are too winding, and the building too close.
We did find out that the admission today was free, we are not sure why, whether it was because it is Sunday, or because of the holiday that will be in Madrid on Monday. We did not think about it too long, we just went on inside. Unfortunately, there were signs posted everywhere prohibiting photography, so we put all of the camera equipment away. It was very impressive inside, the stone columns were very large. From reading about the cathedral in the guide book, we found out that it took about 250 years to construct, and varied in architecture, most likely changing as the time to construct went forward. The main altar in the cathedral was a tremendous sight, it was very tall, and almost all of the area was covered in gold guild on wood.
Main Altar Panorama- Toledo Cathedral
Directly across from the altar was the choir area, and there were two different pipe organs, built many years apart from each other.
Pipe Organ – Toledo Cathedral
We saw a lot of people taking pictures, basically ignoring the signs not to, so we ignored them also, and took some photos of the altar and of the choir area. It is almost a shame that with such beauty, they do not allow you to take photos. A lot of the other parts of the cathedral were not very well lit, so taking photos without a flash, even with an advanced camera, would have been difficult. Maybe that was part of the reason, too many people using flashes, and disrupting the overall experience. We walked around the rest of the cathedral, there were many separate, small chapels along the sides, and several large rooms off to the side away from the main area. One of these, the old Sacristy, contained several pieces of art from El Greco, and several from other famous artists. The El Greco works were of a period where dark paintings must have been the norm, they were not very colorful or bright.
There was another room with paintings of all of the Archbishops of Toledo since about 600 AD. Some of the earlier versions were said to be more of a rendition of the earlier Archbishops than a real likeness, these were painted in about 1500 AD., well after the real subject’s deaths. However, many of the archbishops after about 1500 AD were indeed actual paintings of the person.
We spent about an hour and a half wondering through the Cathedral, then went back out on the streets to do dome more shopping before heading out on the bus back to the Toledo train station. We then walked back toward Toledo to take a few pictures of the walled city from the river.
City of Toledo From The Tagus River
We took some more photos of the town from the area below by the river. Then, arriving back at the train station, we went into the station’s cafeteria and ordered a couple of cervezas (beers) while waiting for our train.
The train ride back was uneventful, it was dark outside by the time the train departed, so there was nothing to see, and we were both tired. Seems like we both may have taken short naps on the ride back to Madrid.
Once back at the hotel, we dropped off of our backpacks and headed out for a bite to eat. We were both tired, so we just got a small sandwich from one of the local bars near the hotel, then it was back to the room to pack. We will be departing early in the morning, around 6:30 am, to retrace our path back to the Atoche Renfe Train Station. This time, we will be taking an even higher speed train (300 km/hr or about 200 mph) to Malaga, Spain, the port city where we will board our cruise ship.