Although the Toledo train station is a beautiful building decorated with stained glass and tiles, it lacks a left-luggage facility. To locate a suitable replacement, we had to lug our large backpack (well, Jay had to) up a large hill to the tourist information center, whereupon we were told to go down the hill to the bus station (neighboring the train station) to find lockers. Should the train station personnel have told this to us when I asked? Probably. A hike is a nice way to start the morning, though.
Once we returned to the top of the hill, luggage safely stowed at the bottom, we purchased bread and cheese (and fanta and aquarius - a watery orange soda that I thought was wonderful) for a mini-picnic in the park just outside the castle/city walls. Proceeding into the city proper, we were met with many winding streets, narrow enough that pedestrians had to cling to the walls at any time a car wanted to pass.
In our journey through these streets, we found bad gazpacho, pretty residential alleyways barely large enough to walk through, many churches, and far more tourists than strictly necessary. For the midday heat, I napped on a bench near a church as Jay transcribed music. After a bit, I was awoken and displaced by a large group of disinterested Spanish students visiting, whose group leader seemed determine that if she yelled and clapped loud enough, her high school students would suddenly take interest in the unique history of the third statue carved into the western facade of such-and-such church, rather than talking amongst themselves. We didn't stay to see if it worked.
The sun was setting as we returned to the station, and it was quite beautiful -- many people waited outside the train station to watch it, and others (we'll call him Jason Gutiérrez Marrone) felt the inexplicable need to go running as the sun set.
Sun down, running-urges satisfied, we made our way to Córdoba.
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