First Day in Madrid

For our first full day in Madrid, we decided to take a trip to Toledo by train.

We bought thte tickets before we left home.

The train station in Madrid is very impressive and also very busy.

The trains are  fast, efficient, and they run on time.

This is the railroad station in Toledo, a much smaller place than the station in Madrid.

However, what it lacks in siize, it more than makes up for in grandeur.

The design is a cross between Spanish and Moorish, with a nod to the church thrown in.

Stained glass windows give the station the look of a church.

Toledo is built on a hill as were many cities at the time, easier to defend that way.

As we had limited time, we took a cab from the station up in to the center of the city.

First stop, the museum of El Greco, an artist born in Greece but who worked in Toledo.

The museum is housed in a set of period buildings arranged in a way similar to the dwelling of 

El Greco.

The layout was such that you felt as though you were walking through his home.

There are some magnificent pieces painted by the artist and some which are copies but very good copies.

If you would like to see El Greco without the trip to Spain, there will be an exhibition of his work on show at the Bowers museum in Santa Ana early in 2016.

This is outside the museum, photography is not allowed inside.

From here we walked further up the hill to the cathedral, Anne bought a ticket for the tour and I got out my GPS fitted with the find a bar app.

Worked perfectly, we met back up at the appointed time and headed for the railroad station once more.

The trip from Toledo to Madrid takes about 35 minutes on the train which is about how long it would take to get out of the center of Madrid by car.

Then it was back to the hotel for some R&R.

Tomorrow is going to be just looking around during the day and going to the restaurant La Favorita in the evening.

This will be one of the nights we celebrate our wedding anniversary.