Today I joined Nina for a day touring Toledo. For her some of the day was a repeat of yesterday but she seemed to enjoy showing me all the things she had discovered. However we started the day with a visit to the Alcazar and the Spanish Army Museum (Museo del Ejército) which was not on Nina's itinerary yesterday . The Alcazar is the iconic building with 4 towers situated on the highest point of the city. In one form or another it dates back to Roman times. More recently however it was the scene of a major battle of the Spanish civil war when a group of Nationalists were besieged in the Alcazar by an overwhelming force of Republicans. The museum itself had a fine collection of old weapons and military odds and ends but without a much better knowledge of Spanish history I found it a bit disjointed.

We spent the remainder of the day doing the hop-on-off bus tour and generally walking around enjoying the great weather and fine ambience of this wonderful city.

I should point out that Toledo is an old city. It was a trading center under the Romans, a regional capital under the Visigoths, was a regional capital under the Moors (who conquered southern Spain in 711), retaken by the Christians in 1085 it remained the Spanish capital until 1561 when Phillip II moved the capital to Madrid.