spain day 5

toledo!

biking!
dinner downtown madrid!

holy smokes, this was a big day. i'd just like to stop here for a second and give a huge shout out to ramona and james. we make them do A LOT and they are 9 and 7 years old, and they are strong travelers, good sports, and all around excellent company. thanks kids for being wonderfull.

ok--back to the play-by-play day-to-day vacation story. (look, i know you don't care, and i'm sorry. i just have to write this all down somewhere or i'll never remember where we went or what we did. you're bascially peering into my back up memory program.)

we went to toledo first thing, and fernando drove us while we all danced to pop music. laura had never been and we all had an exceptional time in this medieval city on a hill 30 minutes south of madrid. it is insanely picturesque, and the weather was unbeatable.

view through the windshield as we approached the old city wall.


toledo is packed with old churches, mosques, temples, with schools and houses and artisans shops and restaurants. it is also packed with tourists, all doing the same thing: wandering the twisty narrow impossible-to-map old city streets in the city center, snacking on churros and touring gorgeous and ancient buildings.

walking up the hill


and peeking out to the countryside over the rooftops, back down the hill


we wandered and ate churros and wandered some more.

james got a sword as a souvenir, and basically turned into don quixote on the spot. the knight theme is felt heavily here, and medieval knights on horseback are easily imagined riding through these cobblestone streets.


laura's friend had ziplined across the river that encircles the town of toledo in the past, and said it was fun and that she had to do it. i wasn't thrilled at the prospect of speeding my body through the air high above a river gorge, but i'm also not 19. the 19 year old, on the other hand, was eager to find this zipline and also eager to apply pressure to everyone in the group to do it with her. i am grateful to laura for her idea and her pressure, because in the end, we ALL ziplined (well, not coco) and had a wonderful time. i think it will remain a total highlight of the trip for the kids.

also, the little truck with the gear was the cutest little truck ever.



the zipline runs across this river, right through the middle of this photo,  but it is hard to see.


there goes david, overcoming fears of heights on vacations since 2005!


here comes ramona! (also hard to see)


and here comes james!


so happy we did it!


after that adrenaline-fueled adventure, it was lunch time. i read that suckling pig is the thing to eat in toledo, although my guides tell me it's much more typical to find in segovia, but we weren't going to segovia, and the food is part of the adventure, so we found a serene little patio where we ate suckling piglets and other delectables....


....and fernando taught everyone how to tie and wear a napkin. perfect.

wow, what a full day....but guess what. we weren't done yet. after a nap on the drive back to madrid, we went right to a bike rental shop, picked up bikes for everyone, and took a 2 hours pleasure ride along the riverbanks in madrid's rio park. this park goes on for miles and miles, is dotted with vendors, and playgrounds, and areas for rest. it was exactly the kind of park a big city needs.

also, these playgrounds are amazing. 

we returned the bikes at 7pm, all tired out. but instead of going to bed, what did we do? made reservations downtown madrid for a 10 pm dinner! it gave us enough time to get home, rest for a bit,


headed back out (here is the nighttime view of fernando's gate... la casita)


and went back to the city center to see how madrid glows after dark. it was perfect.

we dabbed in front of the lions of congress,

and had a delicious meal of weird things we never would have ordered in a million years on a terrace at a restaourant in the santa ana plaza.

and then laura took the kids for an extended ride all the way back to the car (we are talking at least a mile here) on fernando's electric scooter. thank god for that scooter. there is no way they were moving their bodies under their own energy by 11 pm that day...

and the ride back home. shhhhhh. they're asleep.