I purchased my train tickets for Toledo online before coming to Spain.  The train station was approximately a 30-minute walk from my hotel in Madrid.  I reviewed my plans with the hotel receptionist who suggested that I take the metro.  I am not a subway person.  I couldn’t tell you the last time I was on a subway alone.  But here was my challenge.  My train for Toledo left at 8:35am.  To get to the train station on time, I would have to leave the hotel at 7:30am.  It was still dark at that time.  My options were to walk in the dark or take the metro.  As I was contemplating my options, I remembered a conversation I had with my son who spent a month in Madrid the year prior.  He confidently stated that the metro system was one of the best and felt it was very safe.

This journey was successful with prayer and a little help from the people that God put in my path.  The receptionist at the hotel gave me a metro card the day I arrived and explained how to add money on the card at the train station.  I decided to complete that process the day before my trip to Toledo.  A young woman at the kiosk helped me through the process.

I left the hotel at 7:40am.  The metro station was in Puerto del Sol square.  I could see the entrance to the metro from my hotel balcony.  As I stood in the center of this massive train station, I did not know whether to go right or left.  I was looking for signs but could not find anything that said Atocha – which was the name of the train station I needed to get to for my train to Toledo.  Near the kiosk machines was a young woman sitting on the floor eating a banana.  I asked her which train I should take for Atocha.  This beautiful woman got up and escorted me to a booth explaining through her phone app translator that it was a very short train ride to Atocha.  This is what I learned from the receptionist at the hotel.  She then pointed in the direction of the train terminal.  After saying our goodbyes and thanking her for the help, I noticed a woman behind an official Renfe train counter.  Renfe was the name of the train company on my ticket that I purchased online.  When I asked this woman about how to get to Atocha train station, she too pointed in the same direction as the other woman, until she noticed my metro card.  When she saw the card, she pointed in a different direction.  Before long, I was on a train platform waiting for the train to Atocha station.  The train arrived, but before getting on board, I said to a woman standing next to me “Atocha?” and she said, “Si.”  It was only three stops to the Atocha train station.  I disembarked the train and found myself in an even bigger train station. 

As I walked desperately looking for signs, I saw two women speaking with two police officers.  I joined them and asked for directions.  The two women were from Minnesota and trying to find their train to Seville.  The police officers pointed the way for each of us.

After moving through security, I found myself staring at a display board waiting for the platform number to indicate where I was to go next.  While waiting, I started a conversation with a woman who was from the area and spoke excellent English.  She was also headed to Toledo.  Before long, the display board indicated that our train was available on Platform 12.  My train ticket indicated the train number, the carriage number, and my seat number.  As I was trying to find my way to my seat, I met a family from Massachusetts. 

As I sat in my seat preparing for the one-hour train ride to Toledo, I felt so blessed as I recalled all the wonderful people God put in my path. 

The train station was designed by Narcisco Claveria y de Palacios and was built in the Neo-Mudejar style.

It was a 30-minute walk to the center of the Old City.  The views were beautiful as I approached the entrance to the walled city. 

Toledo is known for medieval Arab, Jewish, and Christian monuments in its walled old city.  It was also the former home of the painter, El Greco.

When planning for this trip, I purchased a travel book for Toledo by Rick Steves.  In this book he encouraged visitors to find the Don Quixote statue in Toledo.  This was one of the first things I saw as I entered the old city. 

There was also a beautiful museum in the cathedral. 

One of the things that struck me was the beautiful paintings of the apostles.  We don’t know if they actually looked like this, but in the eyes of the painter, this is what he believed the apostles looked like.

An outside courtyard of the Cathedral led to the chapel of Saint Blaise. 

When I decide to take books with me on my travels, I randomly select the books from my stack of unread books.  One of those books was titled – Beautiful Eucharist. I did not realize how appropriate this book was for this trip.  I made several references to this book in previous blogs.  In the conclusion of this book, Matthew Kelly writes, “One thing that becomes abundantly clear when you start traveling is that the world is full of beautiful Catholic churches.”  He continues, “What do these beautiful churches really say to us?  They say that there is something greater here than art or architecture, something more than history – and not just something … but someone.  That someone is Jesus Christ, truly present in the Eucharist, present in all these churches, and present in the tabernacle in your local church.”  I finished reading this book the day before my trip to Toledo. 

After several hours at the cathedral, I decided it was time to find a good place for lunch. 

My day trip to Toledo is not over.  There is still so much more to share. 

In the next blog, I visited three other beautiful structures in Toledo. 

Stay tuned as the adventure continues.

We are adding the finishing touches to Book #3. Stay tuned for the book cover reveal.

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