Great day and night in Toledo

Great day and night in Toledo

Toledo, Spain, Europe

Today was a great day in Toledo! I left Vivi’s in Madrid at 10:30am and walked down to Atocha train station to get the train to Toledo. Alicia was nice enough to pick me up at the train station with Rodrigo when I arrived at noon. We went into the old city and parked the car so we could walk around for a few hours. It really is a cool little city, built on a hill, and surrounded by the river Tajo on three sides. Alicia used to be a tour guide so she was given me little knowledge nuggets as we walked through the town, which is always cool.

We went to a bar/restaurant called Botero to have a drink. This is where Rodrigo used to work, and Alicia and Vivi used to frequent when they were both in Toledo. It was a cool little bar on the ground floor, and then a nice restaurant on the first floor. We were having our first drink when the owner, Frederik, came in. He’s a cool guy, born in Colombia, lived in Holland briefly, and has been here in Spain for many years. He owns this restaurant, paints, and travels, so he was a pretty interesting guy to chat with.

Frederik invited us to join him for lunch upstairs and we were more than happy to accept. It’s not often that I get to try gourmet local cuisine while sitting with the owner of the place. The meal was amazing. We didn’t order anything, or even look at the menu. Frederik just told them what to bring for the table and at least five different dishes came out, and all were amazing. It’s certainly not the type of food I’m used to eating, especially while traveling and keeping the budget down, but it was excellent.

The dishes included pork with a scallop on top, octopus served with potatoes, sliced pork with tomatoes, pate covered in crushed almonds with fruits, and some sort of humus that you just eat with a spoon, no pita or bread needed. For dessert we were served a chocolate soufle covered with salt and caramel (not salted caramel). It was amazing! I’ve never had anything like it. I was also able to try a local beer called Domos and it was really nice. It was very similar to Leffe from Belgium, which is my favorite beer. So the surprise lunch turned out to be an excellent way to spend a couple hours in the afternoon.

We came back to Alicia’s flat and Rodrigo headed off to work. He got a job for the night in Madrid, so he had to go quite early and he’ll spend the night in Madrid instead of coming all the way back to Toledo at 3am. Alicia and I headed into the forrest to celebrate her friend Eugenio’s birthday. A couple of friends came to meet us, Jesus and Ana, and the five of us sat at a picnic table in the woods, had a LOT of food, and then played a great game of Spanish Trivial Pursuit: Genius Edition. We played in teams so it was Alicia and I versus Eugenio and Jesus, with Ana being the quizmaster. It was a lot of fun, and thankfully Alicia was able to translate all of the questions into English for me. I don’t think I was much help to her, but Alicia and I ended up winning the game!

We all hung out until just after 1am and then we made our way home. It was a really good night, with nice people, and I got to play with Jesus and Ana’s dog Coco as well. I miss having dogs around, so that was really nice. I’m staying at Alicia’s tonight and will go back to Madrid tomorrow at some point. It was really fun hanging out with Alicia. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to see her very much while I was here, so this was a really nice surprise.

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