Holy Toledo!

We had four days between the end of LV round robin 2 and the start of the LV semi finals - well, 3 actually as Rod had to go into work today (sunday) to "rehearse" for tomorrow's start. A small break - but we made the most of it and headed inland and north to visit Toledo (yep!) and Madrid.

Valencia - Toledo was a 5 hour drive in the car. We arrived about 3pm and spent a good 4 hours wandering the old city's tiny streets and tasting some (pretty ordinary) local meal. We love the delicatessions selling cheeses, pastries and cherizos (salamis) which you buy by the kilo (or "gramos" for cheese).... but the cafe food is pretty average (basic pastas, rice and bread dishes). You really need to book into a good restaurant, most don't even open until 9pm, and you won't have company until 10pm (!)..and be prepared to wait a while for food. In Spain, eating is a past time rather than a mean to an end.

Toledo has a population of 70,000 - but like most spanish cities, most reside in high apartment blocks - so there is a huge amount of people in very small spaces. The shops and cafes are all under the apartments and kids play in the plaza's, parks or the street.

The drive from Valencia to Toldeo saw intensive irrigated cropping once we reached the plateau (central spain) with lots of wheat, olive and almond trees and grape vines (although not nearly as intensively grown as in NZ - and most of the vines we saw grew on bushes not climbing on lateral wires). The most interesting is the number of wind farms we spotted along the way..one particularly large one we have photographed ....

PS- Toledo is famous for it's suits of armour and marzipan. We saw a model fortified city made of marzipan (and decided we would all feel rather sick if we even got past eating the main gate!)