Travel Log
Posts Tagged ‘cathedral’
Lisbon from Castle to Cathedral
On Wednesday, my second day in Lisbon, after giving up on getting my luggage anytime that morning, I decided to go ahead and get started on the serious business of being a tourist. The weather was perfect and it would have been a crime to waste it sitting around the hostel hoping my luggage would magically appear.
I'm planning on doing a side trip to Toledo on Friday. Toldeo is the capital of the province and has a huge mount of interesting historical sites. Its about 1 hour 15 minutes outside of Madrid.
Escape to Toledo
Time to escape the hustle and bustle of Madrid on start doing day trips outside of the city. My first foray into the countryside was a trip to Toledo. It took me a while to figure out what train to take and how to get the correct ticket to go with my Eurail pass but eventually I was on my way.
El Escorial is a village with an immense palace and monastery which was built in 1557 by Phillip II. The village is only about an hour by train from Madrid.
Florence was my first stop in Italy and I have to admit that it ended up being somewhat of a disappointment. Maybe it was because I had such huge expectations for Italy, or maybe I was just tired, or perhaps I just caught the Italians at a bad time of year. Whatever the reason, I found most Italians to be rude, arrogant, and generally unfriendly. That wasn’t true of the hostel, restaurant, and guide folks but their livelihood depends on being nice to tourists. But people on the street, bus drivers, train attendants, shop owners, and just normal folks were exceedingly disagreeable.
