Our Tour Bus Trip to Toledo, Spain (That Became a Tour of Horrors)

Toledo, Spain - Photo by J. Sharland Day

In my mind, the misty end to our bus ride when we arrived at the parking lot near Toledo, promised to be magical. We disembarked from the bus, rode the escalator up the covered space along the wall of the Alcázar, then climbed a bunch of steps to finally get to the street level of the once-walled city of Toledo. When we walked across a road and around a corner to the plaza, I saw that it was surrounded by buildings that had been there for centuries. Some were likely from the third and fourth centuries and I could almost smell the old stone and mortar; the thick-cut wooden doors and old frames around the windows with a whiff of fresher air from the higher vantage point. I’d have felt that we were in a time warp, except for the number of people in modern clothing wandering about.

Toledo, known by the Romans as Toletum, is thought to have originated by a group of Jewish Travelers. After the Romans came along, it became the capital of the Visigoth Kingdom and an outpost for fighting the Moors. As different kings came and went, Toledo was the capital of Spain until 1560 when Phillip II moved his court to Madrid. The history of Toledo is vast and fascinating, and worth some research.

It is known as ‘The Glass City’, and not only of Spain, but of the world because of its wonderful glass bottles, windows, and more. It is also well known for its steel, for its high-quality alloy, and is in competition with the famous Damascus steel because of both.

Toledo is also known as ‘Frog Town’ because of its many frogs that live in the surrounding swamps and waterways near the city. As a campaign, 100 large fiberglass frogs were brought in and painted by the local artists, which can be seen around the town.

Our guide had handed out earphones on the bus to be able to hear him, which were orange in color to identify our group, or so we thought. Earphones were a good idea to be able to hear him better, but sometimes hearing was marginal. Obviously, the closer we were to him, the better we could hear, which was important because he was a font of knowledge and a great speaker. Instead of the information being a drudge to listen to, as was the case at times, he made the information interesting by pointing out things that verified his words, or he would show us little things and tell a story about them. It was a fascinating tour, at least in the beginning.

Unfortunately, more and more busloads of tourists began to flock in and began vying for the quiet as well as the narrow spaces of the walkways we were in. Those narrow alleys, like in most medieval villages and towns, were built close to each other to be able to walk through the cooler shadows between the buildings, rather than the more intense heat on the wider, sunnier roadways for the carts and horses. Trying to keep up with our group and being able to hear through our earphones became a challenge and the whole experience became frustrating, tedious, and tiresome.

I felt sorry for the people who lived in the town, who had to put up with so many intruders day after day. They couldn’t drive through the streets because of the herds of people and were told that residents could only be in their vehicles after 3:00 in the afternoon when the buses left. But some needed to leave early and would have to hope people would move out of their way in their rush to an appointment or an emergency. It was shocking. And there were also the many workers who made their living keeping the city up and running smoothly. We were constantly being honked at to move out of the roads by delivery or maintenance people because we had our ears plugged and couldn’t hear them drive up behind us. It had become a tour of horrors. And instead of being irritated, I had to keep reminding myself that we were two of the many who were also part of the horror.

Why the government allowed the big buses to unload the masses in communities trying to live a normal life but could no longer do so is beyond comprehension. I easily understood the reason behind groups in some of the cities who protested with signs that said, “Tourists Go Home!”

As we wandered through the streets, straining to hear our leader, it became more and more difficult to comprehend what was being said as well as difficult to determine which group was ours, because, as it turned out, other groups had earphones the same color as ours.

Touring Toledo, Spain - Photo by J. Sharland Day

By the time we got to the last stop — The Primate Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo — it was late afternoon. We were hot, hungry, and very thirsty. After we saw the beauty within the holy building and listened to our guide talk about its history, while he moved everyone on to other rooms, we, and a few others, went outside instead. We weren’t into churches much and we wanted to relax in a quieter and cooler space to wait for the rest to come out and for the guide to tell us that we could go find a place to eat. But our wait was long, well over the 20-minute allotment for a lecture, and our need to find water and food grew stronger as the minutes ticked away. We didn’t realize there was so much to see and hear about in that little church, so after forty-five minutes we decided to go find a place to eat.

Luckily there was a restaurant on the other side of the church down the hill along the alley that led to the plaza. The restaurant, Los Custros Tempos, was lovely. It had large windows to see the people walking from the church, so we thought we’d see our group pass by. Although the restaurant was a bit fancier than what we would have normally sought, we were too hungry, hot, and thirsty to hunt for something more casual. Also, we thought that most of those types of eateries would be packed with other tourists, anyway.

It was la comida time, the heaviest meal of the day, and the restaurant’s menu was based on that time with three distinct sections of choices. The first entre choices on the menu were soups; the second entre choices were meat of various kinds or fish; the third was a salad selection; and last was dessert with choices of ice cream, flan, or a light pastry with coffee and liqueur or brandy to finish off the meal. That was the custom in Spain during the hours of 12:00 to 4:00 or 1:00 to 5:00: siesta time. A time to slow down and enjoy a big meal with family and friends for an hour and a half or more and then, if time permitted, a short nap.

We didn’t have the time to dawdle away the afternoon by eating three separate courses, so we asked if we could just have a hamburger. The waiter’s answer was no, but after we explained our reasons for being in a hurry — other than the fact that we were Americans and being in a hurry was our nature — the waiter, consulted with his boss, who allowed us our hamburgers with fries along with some beer. The meal was delicious, and not just because of our hunger and thirst. The beef was fresh and tasty, as were the vegetables served between the buns, and the beer was beer, always tasty when one is hot and thirsty.

Since we didn’t see our group pass because they went the other way, we had to watch the time. We couldn’t be late getting to the bus.

After we finished our meal, now feeling ready for a real siesta, we had to hurry toward the plaza where we all were to meet. But there were so many people that we couldn’t find the right group. We saw some orange earphones and thought the people looked familiar, so we kept our eyes on them.

As time clicked by, we were getting concerned about when we were supposed to be heading for the bus and walked over to the ones with look-alike earphones to ask about the time the bus was to leave. They told us that it would leave in another 20 minutes, thinking we were with their group. We sat and waited for our leader to give us the signal via our earphones, which had remained silent since we’d gotten to the plaza. We finally heard a voice in our ears, but couldn’t detect the words. My husband got up to walk closer to where the voice was coming from and saw our leader rushing to leave the plaza, but no others followed. We realized that the couple we’d talked to was with another group with the same color earphones.

Toledo, Spain - Photo by J. Sharland Day

Our tour guide hadn’t seen us in his rush, but we kept an eye on him. Or tried. He was much faster than we were and we soon lost sight of him in the crowd. We knew the general direction of where we were to go to find the stairs that led to the escalator. But in my exhausted state, and need to hurry, I tripped on the steps. My husband, being ahead of me, didn’t see me fall. He turned when I yelled out and was coming back to help me, when another man, who was closer, helped me up.

I thanked him with assurances that I was okay, and we rushed down the remainder of the steps and to the escalator. We arrived at the bus just as they were ready to leave us behind, I was sure, because both the driver and our leader who’d been standing in front of the bus had turned to go inside when we yelled that we were coming.

Needless to say, they weren’t happy with us but were too polite to scold. The only censure we received was, “You should have stayed at the church with the rest of the group.” Right.

Looking back on the event, seeing the many photos I had taken of the fantastically beautiful historic town, I wish I could have been there under more normal circumstances, greeting the local people and asking questions, instead of learning from a guide with hundreds of other people trying to hear and see the same things we were seeing. It’s one of the most fascinating places I have been to, but the fascination was diminished by the influx of so many other tourists all at once.

I don’t feel that others should not have had the opportunity to experience such a historic place, but every single person would have had a far better experience by going there to wander around and feel the spirits of the inner walls of the Alcazar, the streets, the buildings, and the people if they’d have been there by themselves.

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Click HERE to read another one of my travel stories from Spain. More travel stories of mine are coming!