Three days in Toledo: the capital Spain walked away from, and left standing
Two nights on a rock in the Tagus: a cathedral that took three centuries, two medieval synagogues, El Greco's best painting in the church he painted it for, and a fortress the twentieth century fought over.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Toledo
- Places
- 9 across 3 days
Toledo sits on a rock with a river around three sides of it, which is why the Romans fortified it, the Visigoths made it their capital, the Muslims held it for four centuries and Alfonso VI took it back in 1085. It stayed the capital of Spain until 1561, when Philip II moved the court to Madrid and the city stopped growing. What that means for a visitor is a whole medieval capital, walled, intact and small enough to cross in twenty minutes.
The three faiths that lived here left their buildings behind and, unusually, the buildings survived. There are two pre expulsion synagogues in Spain outside Córdoba and both are in Toledo, one of them built by Muslim craftsmen. There is a mosque from the year 1000 that became a church without losing its arches. And there is a cathedral of the sort that takes a quarter of a millennium to build and empties a treasury.
Almost everybody comes for the day from Madrid, half an hour away by train. Two nights changes the city entirely. The coaches go at six, the lanes empty, the stone cools, and the place you are walking through stops being a monument and turns back into a town of eighty thousand people.
Highlights
- A cathedral with a hole cut in the vault to throw daylight onto a baroque marble altar
- El Greco's greatest painting, still in the small church it was painted for
- A synagogue built by Muslim craftsmen for a Jewish congregation, and saved by becoming a church
- The chains of Christian prisoners hanging on a royal monastery wall since the fifteenth century
- The whole city from the far bank at dusk, gold on a rock above a green river
Where to stay
Toledo, two nights
Stay inside the walls. That is the entire argument for coming here rather than day tripping, and it costs less than you would expect because most beds are empty by nightfall.
Two nights gives you an evening walk when the city is empty, one full day for the cathedral and the Jewish quarter, and a last morning for El Greco before the train.
Day by day
Day 1 in Toledo
Cristo de la Luz, the Alcazar and the view from the Jesuit towers
Come in through the Puerta de Bisagra at the bottom of the hill and walk up, which is how the city was entered for a thousand years and still the best introduction to it.
The first thing worth stopping for is a small square building on the way up, built as a mosque around the year 1000 and turned into a church a couple of centuries later without much being taken away. Nine little domes, horseshoe arches, early Christian paintings on the plaster.
Higher up, the Alcazar squats over the whole city. It has been a Roman camp, a Muslim keep, a royal palace and, in 1936, the site of a two month siege that reduced it to rubble; the version standing today was rebuilt afterwards and holds the Spanish army museum, which is far better than the phrase suggests, and the regional library.
Finish at the Jesuit church for sunset. Its twin towers are the highest point in the city and you can climb them, which puts the cathedral, the Alcazar and the river all in one turn.
- 15:00
Mosque of Cristo de la Luz
ReligiousA mosque from about the year 1000, tiny, brick built and almost intact, with a Christian apse added later and Roman paving under a glass floor. Fifteen minutes, and one of the oldest buildings in the city.
- 16:30
The Alcazar
CultureThe square fortress on the summit, rebuilt after the civil war and now the army museum, with the excavated foundations of every earlier building on the site in the basement.
- 19:30
Iglesia de los Jesuitas
ReligiousA baroque Jesuit church with a staircase up both towers. Go about an hour before sunset: the roofs, the cathedral spire and the Tagus below are all lit from the side.
With more time: The Iglesia del Salvador, five minutes downhill, is another mosque that became a church and kept Visigothic pillars in the arcade. For dinner, walk away from Zocodover and find a tavern doing carcamusas.
Day 2 in Toledo
The cathedral, Santo Tomé and the synagogue of Santa María la Blanca
The cathedral takes two hours and deserves them. It was begun in 1226 on the site of the main mosque and finished in 1493, which is why it is French gothic outside and everything else inside. The things to find: the Transparente, a baroque marble altarpiece behind the high altar lit by a hole cut through the vault above it, so the light falls on it from the roof; the sacristy, which is a small gallery of El Greco, Goya, Titian and Caravaggio; and the Mozarabic chapel, where a rite older than the Roman one is still said.
Ten minutes west, the church of Santo Tomé has one painting and a queue for it. El Greco painted the Burial of the Count of Orgaz in the 1580s for the wall it still hangs on, showing a local nobleman being lowered into his grave by two saints while the entire population of Toledo, painted from life, stands behind him in ruffs.
Then the Jewish quarter proper. Santa María la Blanca was built around 1180 as a synagogue, by Muslim craftsmen, in a forest of white horseshoe arches, and was later taken over as a church. It is empty of furniture and it is the most beautiful interior in Toledo.
- 10:00
Cathedral
ReligiousTwo hundred and fifty years of building, a treasury with a two metre silver monstrance, and a choir of carved walnut showing the fall of Granada scene by scene. Take the audio guide; it comes with the ticket and the labelling does not.
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- 14:00
Lunch off the tourist street
EatTwo streets north or south of the cathedral, a menu of the day with carcamusas or partridge runs to about fifteen euros.
- 15:30
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz
OtherOne painting in a side chapel of a small parish church, and one of the two or three best things in Spain. Buy the ticket, wait your turn, then stay ten minutes longer than everyone else.
- 16:45
Synagogue of Santa María la Blanca
ReligiousA twelfth century synagogue of white pillars and horseshoe arches, built in the Almohad manner and later used as a church, which is why it survived. Empty, quiet and unforgettable.
With more time: The Museum of Santa Cruz, back up near Zocodover, is a Renaissance hospital with a fine staircase, several El Grecos and no crowd at all. The other evening option is to walk out over the Puente de San Martín and up the far bank for the view back.
Day 3 in Toledo
El Tránsito, the El Greco museum and San Juan de los Reyes
Three things in one street, and all of them on the western edge of the rock where the Jewish quarter used to end.
The synagogue of El Tránsito was built in the 1350s for Samuel ha-Levi, treasurer to Peter I of Castile, and it is the opposite of the white synagogue up the street: one high hall with a wall of carved plaster and Hebrew inscriptions running round it under a cedar ceiling. The Sephardic museum occupies the rooms behind.
Next door, the El Greco museum is not his house, whatever the signs once said: it is a wealthy collector's reconstruction of a sixteenth century Toledo house, furnished as one, with a room of his paintings, among them a view of Toledo and a series of apostles.
Finish at San Juan de los Reyes. Ferdinand and Isabella built it as their own burial church and then took Granada in 1492 and chose to be buried there instead, which left Toledo with an extravagant royal monastery and no royal tombs. The chains hanging on the outside wall belonged to Christian prisoners freed from Málaga.
- 10:00
Synagogue of El Tránsito
ReligiousA fourteenth century synagogue with a carved plaster wall and a Sephardic museum attached, telling the story of Jewish Spain up to the expulsion in 1492 and after it.
- 11:15
El Greco Museum
HistoricA recreated Toledo house of El Greco's time, with a courtyard, a kitchen, and a gallery holding his map of the city and a set of apostle portraits. Small, calm and rarely busy.
- 12:30
Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes
ReligiousLate gothic at its most confident: a two storey cloister carved with animals and thistles, a church of royal coats of arms, and prisoners' chains on the outer wall.
With more time: If the train is in the afternoon, walk out of the Cambrón gate and across the river, then up the Carretera de Circunvalación to the Mirador del Valle, where the postcard view of the whole city is taken from. It is forty minutes up and there is a bus if you would rather not.
Before you go
Getting in
Trains from Madrid Atocha take thirty three minutes and run roughly every hour or two. Book both legs: it is a return with a fixed time on the way back, it sells out on weekends, and there is no flexibility once bought.
The station is a Mudejar revival building worth looking at before you leave it, and it is a kilometre and a half below the old town. City buses 5, 22, 61 and 62 run up to the Plaza de Zocodover for under two euros; the walk back down takes half an hour and is pleasant.
Buses from Madrid's Plaza Elíptica take about an hour and cost less. If you drive, park at the Recaredo or Safont car parks outside the walls and take the free outdoor escalators that carry you up into the old town.
Getting around
On foot, and expect to get lost. The lanes were laid out for donkeys and they curve, fork and dead end; the city is small enough that this does not matter, and following a wall downhill always works.
Wear real shoes. It is cobbled, steep in places, and the shortest route between two doors is usually a staircase. Cars and delivery vans do use these streets, so listen for them behind you.
When to go
Spring and autumn. Toledo is on the Castilian plateau, which means forty degrees in July and frost in January, and there is very little shade on the rock.
Corpus Christi, in late spring, is the city's own festival: the streets are hung with awnings and tapestries and the cathedral's silver monstrance is carried through them. Rooms go early and the city is packed.
Whenever you come, plan around the day trippers rather than the weather. Between eleven and five the main streets are solid; before and after, they are yours.
Eating
Castilian and heavy: partridge stewed with onion, roast lamb, and carcamusas, a pork and tomato stew that is Toledo's own and is served as a tapa in every old tavern.
Marzipan is the city's other speciality and has been made in its convents since the Middle Ages. Buy it from a convent turn or an old confectioner rather than a souvenir shop, and buy the plain almond kind.
Eat away from the cathedral square. Two streets in any direction from the tourist route the prices halve and the dining rooms fill with people who work here.
Toledo is a capital that stopped in 1561 and was never built over, which is why three religions' worth of architecture is still standing inside one set of walls a mile across.
See it in the evening, after the last coach has gone down the hill. That is when it is worth the two nights.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is Toledo worth staying overnight, or is a day trip enough?
- Stay. The day trip gives you the cathedral and a crowded lunch. The evening, when the coaches have gone and the lanes are lit and empty, is the reason people love this city, and you cannot buy it with a return ticket.
- Is there a combined ticket for the monuments?
- Yes. A bracelet sold at any of them covers a group including both synagogues, San Juan de los Reyes, Santo Tomé, the Jesuit church and Cristo de la Luz, and pays for itself after three. The cathedral and the Alcazar are separate.
- How long do I need for the cathedral?
- Two hours, and go in the morning. The treasury, the sacristy gallery and the choir all need time, and the Transparente is at its best when the sun is high enough to come through the roof opening.
- Where is the classic view of Toledo?
- From the far bank of the Tagus on the Circunvalación road, the Mirador del Valle. Sunset is the moment. A bus runs up from Zocodover, or it is a forty minute walk over the San Martín bridge and round.
- Can I combine Toledo with Madrid?
- Easily, and it is the obvious pairing: thirty three minutes each way, with trains until the evening. Do Toledo in the middle of a Madrid trip rather than at the end, so a delayed train does not cost you a flight.
- Can I copy this itinerary and change it?
- Yes. Copy it, drop whichever church you would not enjoy, and put the cathedral wherever your morning is freest.