Today, we took the train to Sevilla via Madrid. On the ride south, Renfe (Spanish train system) played the movie Le nom des gens (The Names of Love) in Spanish and French (with Spanish subtitles). Since neither Valerie nor I are fluent in Spanish or French, we spent a great deal of the movie trying to figure out what was going on in the quirky French film. (We still don’t know.)

After arriving at Sevilla, we walked to our hotel in the Santa Cruz barrio. (In retrospect, we should have taken a bus.) After settling in, we took a Rick Steves walking tour of the barrio, during which we met another couple doing the same walking tour. We also signed up for a Flamenco dance show tomorrow recommended by Rick.

Valerie has been having trouble sleeping on the hard Spanish beds. Since we don’t have any early morning plans for tomorrow morning, we will probably sleep in.

We woke up around 8am this morning to catch our trains to Toledo via Madrid. Rick Steves recommends spending two nights in Toledo, but we only scheduled one, so our tour of the city was abbreviated. Our first stop was the cathedral and its associated museum. Admission is a steep 8 euro, but it’s a slightly more impressive cathedral than most. Our other sightseeing stop was the Santa Cruz Museum, which is free and will be featuring an exhibit on El Greco in the future, but sadly not while we were there. On the way back to the hotel, we ate a dinner of tapas and wine at a restaurant outside the cathedral.