Ave Maria V: Toledo
Breakfast buffet at Marriott was quite good with a wide selection of fruits, pastries, cold cuts and cheeses. Of course they had the usual hamster food station as well. And the walls were lined with Nespresso machines. A local guide was arranged for our tour of Toledo and Madrid. Her name was Goncha and she met us at the hotel. Started out towards Toledo which was about an hour out of town, passing through many furniture factories and olive orchards. She spoke in a lazy, slurred manner prompting many of us to have an early siesta (nap) . Toledo was the capital of Spain approximately 1000 years ago before the nobility moved to Madrid. The old city is unique because it was a community of Christians, Muslims and Jews. But that changed during the Spanish Reconquest when Catholicism was proclaimed as the official religion and those of other faiths were asked to convert lest they be expelled. In 1986, Toledo was declared a UNESCO heritage site for its cultural and monumental heritage. B