Last minute, Sri & I decided to take a half-day trip to the beautiful town of Toledo, which is just south of Madrid. I´ve been there before but I knew it was worth going to. We found an organized tour via our hotel and were on a bus this morning at 8am (and it was a bad night of sleep...er...lack of sleep). Fortunately, it was a rather nice & sunny day in Toledo and we saw everything from the Catedral to the Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes to the oldest synagogue in Spain (dates to the 12th century!). Unfortunately, the tour ended at some factory where they tried to get us all to buy gold-plated little arts and crafts or huge, heavy swords. Everyone conked out for the bus trip home, finally getting back to Madrid mid-afternoon: time for lunch! I was sta-a-a-arving and rather grouchy. After wandering around a bit, Sri & I settled at a little terraza restaurant in the Plaza de Santa Ana, only to eat some rather expensive, greasy tapas that left both of our stomachs turning a bit. A short stop in a Starbucks for a blueberry muffin made my stomach feel all better. We then did some serious shopping. Ha ha. For the past couple days, we´d been eyeing various stores but didn´t have time to stop in to any of them.



Dinner tonight was memorable. We went to El Restaurante Botín, the oldest restaurant in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records (also featured in The Sun Also Rises for all you literary fanatics). I had roasted suckling pig and Sri had roasted baby lamb...mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm. We literally closed the restaurant, being the last patrons to walk out of there. Fabulous experience.



Tomorrow, we´re definitely going to hit the museums.