Highlights-Madrid (actually Toledo)

I went to Toledo with a friend. It is a short day trip from Madrid. Toledo is an ancient city unrestrained by any discernible urban planning: no street or alley is straight for more than 50m. Undoubtedly for defensive reasons, it is located on hills high above an arc of the Rio Tajo (normally, locating cities on hills isn’t a great idea because it complicates plumbing). The combination of crooked streets on hills is a nonstarter for the mobility challenged and use of a mobile phone map app is necessary to get anywhere. Like many cities in Spain, Toledo has a statue of Cervantes. If he even looked in the direction of the city, there is a statue. This one is slightly more than life size and not on a high pedestal making it easy to remove the white bird stuff that accumulates on his head (I can say no more). We visited the El Greco museum and a museum in the former Hospital de Santa Cruz (without bedpans, just looked like a convent to me). The latter was for a display of maps and diary excerpts related to the first circumnavigation of the earth. I have to write “maps related to” because they didn’t have a map. No wonder there were several mutinies and one of the ships returned to Spain before reaching the Pacific (the San Antonio). “You don’t have a map! Why didn’t you tell us? We’re outta here.” On the way back to the parking lot (outside the city), we were dragooned into attending a dramatic presentation in a tiny passage under a convent. These happen all over Toledo, but not usually in dark passages underground.