How to fill a day in central Spain
Saturday, January 17th, 2009 08:40 pmI am getting the sleeper train from Paris to Madrid when I go to Gibraltar for Pesach; it'll be my first time on a sleeper train. The concept strikes me as very Victorian...
Once I get there, I'll have a day and a half to fill and to get to Gibraltar before Pesach comes in. My mother suggested seeing Toledo, a city with a significant Jewish history. Does anyone here have recommendations as to what to see in Toledo and/or Madrid?
The RENFE (Spanish train company) web site gives me only two trains a day from Madrid to Algeciras; though Rail Europe says the timetable isn't released until sixty days beforehand, so maybe if I wait more trains will turn up (or the times will change). One of the two is too late for me; it arrives across the bay and the border from Gibraltar three minutes after candle-lighting; the other is early in the morning.
If that remains the case, I think I'll probably go back to Madrid and stay overnight there, since trains to Algeciras go from Madrid, not Toledo; but it's annoying that I can't pin down my arrangements until early in February...
Once I get there, I'll have a day and a half to fill and to get to Gibraltar before Pesach comes in. My mother suggested seeing Toledo, a city with a significant Jewish history. Does anyone here have recommendations as to what to see in Toledo and/or Madrid?
The RENFE (Spanish train company) web site gives me only two trains a day from Madrid to Algeciras; though Rail Europe says the timetable isn't released until sixty days beforehand, so maybe if I wait more trains will turn up (or the times will change). One of the two is too late for me; it arrives across the bay and the border from Gibraltar three minutes after candle-lighting; the other is early in the morning.
If that remains the case, I think I'll probably go back to Madrid and stay overnight there, since trains to Algeciras go from Madrid, not Toledo; but it's annoying that I can't pin down my arrangements until early in February...