Toledo with kids works well for half a day, but leave the stroller in the car. We found that out last Sunday with our 5-year-old son, our 18-year-old niece and my wife. Our son loved the outdoor escalators up from the car park, all four of us loved the old town, and I spent a good part of three hours pushing a stroller up hills it had no business being on.
Toledo wasn’t even the reason for the trip. The reason was Shakira: my wife and I had tickets for her show on Saturday the 10th of October at the Estadio Shakira (opens in new tab), a temporary stadium built inside Iberdrola Music in Madrid. Toledo was the bonus on the way home.
The day before: Shakira at Iberdrola Music
Our niece had never been to Madrid, so we started with a walk from Parking Indigo Princesa near Plaza de España. Our car has an ECO sticker, so Madrid’s low-emission zone wasn’t an issue (I wrote about the sticker system after our first Madrid road trip). An hour of weekend parking came to about 16 euros. Her verdict was that Madrid was unlike any city she’d visited before.
Then we checked into our hotel in Parla, ate at the McDonald’s opposite because that was what we had time for, left our son and niece at the hotel, and drove to the parking spot we’d reserved at the Hard Rock Hotel. The plan was to walk to the station and take the train from there. My wife suggested a taxi instead, and that’s the only reason we were in on time for the whole show. Shakira came on at nine.
We were amazed by the size of it. La Ganzúa’s report puts the stadium at more than 50,000 people a night, and it looked it. After about two hours of show, Cabify quoted us 178 euros for a taxi back, so we took the free shuttle bus like a lot of other people. We accidentally skipped the queue for it, because we genuinely didn’t realize it was a queue, and about an hour later we were standing on a bus back toward the car park.
Sunday: Toledo with a 5-year-old
The shop opposite the hotel happened to be open on Sunday morning, so we bought breakfast there and drove the 30 minutes from Parla to Toledo.
Our plan was to park at Safont, which has its own escalators up to the old town. An access road to it was closed by police when we got there, so we went to the Indigo Recaredo car park instead, which sits right at the foot of the Recaredo escalators.
Those escalators were our son’s highlight. They run outdoors up the hillside, and for a 5-year-old that’s basically a ride. The Toledo town hall lists the hours (opens in new tab) as 7:00 to 23:00 Monday to Thursday, 8:00 to 23:00 on Sundays and holidays, and until 2:00 on Friday and Saturday nights, and they can change around festivals like Corpus Christi and Holy Week, so check the town hall page before you go.
The old town, the cathedral and the Mirador del Alcázar
What all four of us loved was the architecture of the old town. We didn’t go inside the cathedral. We saw it from the outside and had a picnic there of bread with some meat we’d prepared at home.
Then we walked to the Alcázar, the big square fortress at the top of the town, and had a drink in the sun on a terrace outside. It was a little busy that Sunday, but never uncomfortably so.
The best view of the trip was from the Mirador del Alcázar, the viewpoint by the fortress. Before heading back to the car we got ice cream just outside Heladería Cassata, an ice cream shop.
Is Toledo worth it with kids?
Yes, for half a day, and especially if your kids like escalators. Three hours was a good length for us, and it was enough to wear him out: he slept for a good part of the drive home. After our day trip to Teruel in September, it’s the second old town we’ve walked with our son in a few weeks.
The stroller was a mistake, though. Toledo is built on a hill, and some streets are steep enough that pushing a loaded stroller up them over old cobbles was hard going. On those stretches our son had to get out and walk. On the bumpy but flatter parts he loved it, and I pushed him over the cobbles until I was the one who was tired.
Where to park in Toledo: the Recaredo escalators
We came from Parla, on the south side of Madrid, and the drive took about 30 minutes. From Toledo, the drive home to Torrent took about four hours.
Indigo Recaredo on the Paseo de Recaredo worked well for us. It’s right at the foot of the Recaredo escalators, so you walk out of the car park and ride up. Safont, with its own escalators, is the alternative. Check it’s reachable before you commit, because on our day it wasn’t.
What it cost us
- Parking Indigo Recaredo, Toledo: about 15 euros for roughly three hours.
- Ice cream for four: about 20 euros.
- Drinks by the Alcázar: about 12 euros.
- Cathedral and Alcázar: nothing, since we only saw them from the outside.
- Parking Indigo Princesa, Madrid: about 16 euros for roughly an hour on a weekend.
- Hotel in Parla: about 600 euros for two rooms for one night, on a concert weekend.
- Taxi home from the concert: quoted at 178 euros on Cabify. We took the free shuttle bus instead.
What we’d do differently
Leave the stroller in the car. For a 5-year-old who can walk, it was more weight to push uphill than help, and he walked the steep bits anyway.
For an event in Madrid, I’d also plan the taxi from the start rather than the train. It was my wife’s idea on the day, and it’s why we saw the whole show.
The last thing we did in Toledo was eat ice cream outside Cassata before the long drive home. After those hills, it was a well-deserved treat.
Hasta luego, mis amigos!
