Spain and Italy

Our trip to Italy came so fast! It felt like it was so far away but the day finally came. 

When we first started our tour, we were told to sleep as much as possible on the plane because we would be landing in the morning and would be out exploring as soon as we got there. I didn't anticipate how hard it would be to sleep cramped in a plane between two people. Needless to say I did not get much sleep. 

When we first landed we met our tour guide, Andy. He was this hippy looking guy that would be taking us all over Spain and Italy. When we met up with Andy, we got on the bus and dropped off all our luggage at the hotel. Our first city was Madrid. 

We got off at Parque del Buen Retiro and walked around for a little bit. It was like their version of central park. It was huge with lots of people walking. Some people were playing music and others were out for their morning jog. 

They set us free for lunch time and we found some Tapas to eat since they kept mentioning that it was their famous food. They were bread slices topped with different things. Not our favorite but it was a good snack. 

Since tapas didn't do the trick we found some dessert place after wards. 

Museo Nacional del Prado

Madrid wasn't as captivating as I thought it would be. It was pretty modern with lots of brand name stores for shopping. 

Atlas Oscura

El Oso y el Madrono. The bear was the official symbol of the city.  

Kilometre zero

Plaza Mayor. We were a little sad to see that there was not any shopping venders at Plaza Mayor. We were ready to get our sourvenirs!

We stopped at a market to get some food before dinner. 

Loved these curved streets. Dinner was not the best. They served us American food so we weren't able to taste real authentic food like we wanted to, which was a little disapoiting. 

The next day we explored a little more of the city. 

Plaza de Toros

We had a personal guide that talked about all of the important landmarks in Madrid. I took this opportunity to take a nap because I was SO tired and jet lagged. I think this was about the time when I started feeling really sick. I wasn't really eating very well and there was no time for sleep which made it a perfect environment for a cold. (I think it was really the flu)

Monumento a Cervantes

Our tour guide said that if a store wanted to rent a space in the main streets of Madrid, it wasn't allowed to alter the outside architecture making it very expensive to upkeep. Pretty much only big stores could afford being in downtown Madrid. 

In the afternoon we drove to Toledo. This was my favorite part of the entire trip. 

It had the most beautiful, authentic buildings. It was the most beautiful little city I had ever seen. 

It looked like the entire city surrounded a castle. 

Being in Toledo and walking through its streets was like going back in time. 

The streets were so tiny. I would forget they were streets until a car would come around the corner and we would all have to hop on the "side walk"

I loved how the windows upstairs were so close together. I could imagine neighbors chit chatting from the second floor. 

Beautiful buildings

Apparently Toledo was very religion happy back in the day. Apparently Arabs, Christians, and Jews all lived peacefully in this city and even adopted some of each other's symbols in their buildings. 

All religions lived peacefully until the king told them that they had to all be Christian or move out and leave everything behind. 

Some people left with nothing and had to start their lives over. 

There are still little Jewish symbols found throughout the city. 

This city was largely populated by the Jews. 

This was the bishop's cathedral. The wall portrayed the life of Jesus.