Toledo

Today we visited the famous ancient city of Toledo. Toledo is about 40 miles South West of Madrid. It has been essentially declared a national treasure. It has served as the headquarters for the Romans, as well as every other conquering force to have come through these parts. It's situated such that it's virtually surrounded on all sides by Tagus river.

It was known as a primary producer of steel, particularly famous for its swords. There are sword vendors everywhere - I considered picking one up as a souvenir, but decided it would be too difficult to get home.

These pictures are nice, but I have some really cool video of us driving over the mountainside with the top down approaching the city. Unfortunately this netbook isn't powerful enough to process video, so you'll have to wait for the final product ;)

Getting home was an adventure. I decided to just be a little more adventurous and navigate by instinct. We drove around the countryside of La Mancha for awhile, pretending to be Don Quixote and Pancho while looking for good vantage points of Toledo from the nearby foothills. Then I just started driving back in the direction of what I assumed was Madrid.

It worked, but we ended up on a toll road. Not too big a deal - we ended up paying something like 8 euro in tolls at the various stops, but the lack of traffic probably made it worth it. We were one of about three cars I saw on the road. Finally made it back into Madrid, but since we came at a completely different angle from whence we had left, I just sorta had to wing it to find out way back to the center of town. Must either have gotten lucky, or I really am getting my bearings around here, because we made it home in short order.