Part 1: Madrid and Toledo

Part 1: Madrid and Toledo 

We took the high-speed train from Barcelona to Madrid on Thursday afternoon. The train was awesome. It was super comfortable, and incredibly quiet, even though we hit speeds of 300 kilometers/hour (=186 mph). I enjoyed seeing mountains and farmland, a change from the constant cityscapes in Barcelona.

Thursday afternoon, our professor took our class on a walking tour of the city and explained some of the most important historical events. We saw the palace where the royal family used to live. The following day, some of us went on a tour of the palace. To say it is extravagant is an understatement. Every room had decadent artwork, lush carpets and tapestries, fancy furniture. The tour guide told us there are more than 3,000 rooms in the palace!

There were tons of statue-people and street performers in the touristy areas of Madrid like Plaza del Sol. We could NOT figure out how this guy was not falling over.

On Friday, we went to two art museums, el Museo de Arte Reina Sofia and the Prado. I really liked the Picasso artwork and it was awesome to see the Velasquez paintings that we had studied in my history class the week before. We took a break from walking all day in the botanical gardens across the street from the Prado.

Saturday, my class took a day trip to Toledo, Spain, which is about an hour southwest of Madrid. Toledo was simply beautiful. The bus drove up a hill on the far side of the river that gave us an amazing view of the whole city. 

The city felt much older than Madrid, but also more empty. The tour guide explained that the city is almost like a museum because tourism has gotten so large in the area that the residents have nearly all moved out to suburbs. We visited the Santa María de Toledo, which is an enormous gothic cathedral, you can see it in the photo above. 

My class had lunch together in a nice local restaurant and my professor gave me a birthday cake! A very nice surprise.