Toledo

Toledo has many, many worthwhile sights. It was a three-night city for me, and I didn't spend any time on day-trips. I urge you to get an early start to your day and plan the full day in Toledo.

Go to Google Maps and take a look at Toledo. The historic city is within the curve of the river. Notice how huge it is. I don't really consider it a day-trip destination, but its proximity to Madrid makes it so for many (probably most) tourists.

In addition to the major sites like the cathedral (which may entail a wait in line) and the El Greco museum, there are a bunch of lovely historic buildings that can be visited, some in mudejar style from the era when much building was done by Moorish craftsmen. The tourist office sells a wristband that gets you into 6 or 7 of those secondary sights and includes short (30-minute) tours of many of them. On a single day-trip you probably wouldn't be able to catch all the tours, but you could hit a few of them. I found them very worthwhile.

I traveled to Toledo by bus. The bus station is a bit closer to the historic town than the train station. Even the bus station is quite a healthy walk, but I found it doable even though I was pulling a rather heavy suitcase behind me. There are escalators that do most of the climbing for you. I imagine the buses running between the bus and train stations and the central historic area (Plaza Zocodover) are pretty frequent.

It's prudent to buy the bus or train ticket for your return trip to Madrid at the same time as the outbound trip; Rick warns that the last transportation of the day sometimes fills up, and being forced to take a taxi to get back to Madrid would be an expensive experience.

If you take the train it is about 20 minutes walk to town. There are taxis outside also because the walk can be hard as when we went it was sunny and hot. But there is a bus that runs into the old town; we took it back instead of walking. Once we arrived inside the old town we took one of those tourist trains because it was just too hot to explore the town on foot. The train stops so you can take pictures from where El Greco painted the famous landscape View of Toledo (Vista de Toledo). After that we just toured the town on foot going into the Toledo Cathedral.

You can certainly do Toledo in a day, depending on your interests, but I agree that it is worth at least a night. Getting there is easy, train, then take the bus up to the main square. From there, most sights are an easy walk, if you plan out your top ones, then you can be back on the train by 6:00 PM and having dinner in Madrid. However, like most day-trip towns, I found the place much more pleasant in the evening with some small but very good restaurants, and a great place to wander.

Toledo is bustling during the day. You'll be sharing it with thousands of your new friends. Stay over and you'll be rewarded. The day trippers leave and the place is magical. Wish we had spent more than one night. Segovia is great for a day trip and you should have their specialty, a suckling pig lunch. Here is the place: http://www.restaurantejosemaria.com/en/

You can also take a short bus ride from the train station to the center. And, as others have said, Toledo is much better as an overnight stay. You can leave most of your luggage at Atocha in a locker and go with a small bag, which makes it easier.

Hi Cheryl, we really loved Toledo and were there for two nights. We traveled by train from Madrid and just took the taxi to our hotel since it was 6-7 Euro, which was near the synagogue. I had read in the RS book about taking the bus up the hill to save your feet, but we never felt like that was necessary and enjoyed walking all over the historic area of Toledo.