We debated what to do on our last day in Madrid. We originally had thought about doing a short day trip outside the city, but after a couple long day trips and knowing the next day we'd have a very long travel day, we opted to stay in the city.

It was the coldest and windiest day of our trip, but we still hoped to get outside, hit up some of our favorite playgrounds and try to make it an active day.

We talked over to a playground in front of the Royal Palace and were surprised to see it roped off. Puzzled, we walked about 10 minutes to one of the other playgrounds. It was also roped off.

We couldn't figure out quite what was going on, but we backtracked one more time to a playground we'd passed on the walk. It was smaller and didn't have much equipment, but it wasn't closed. It also wasn't very exciting for our kiddo, so after ten minutes, we hopped a city bus to take us back to Retiro Park.

Even though all the playgrounds were closed there too, we at least had lots of wide open space to run explore and run around.

I was curious about the playground closure thing and tried to find an answer. Reddit told me that sometimes the city closes the playgrounds in certain weather conditions so tree branches don't fall on kids. I don't know how true that is, but it's the only thing close to an answer I found.

The highlight was for sure getting to pet the police horses patrolling near the lake.

Or maybe it was chasing more pigeons. We did a lot of that too.

We also got to see a pretty rose garden that we hadn't made it to the day before, and I was surprised for late November, how many flowers were still in bloom.

After burning off some energy, we left the park to do one last daytime stroll through the city, admiring the Christmas decorations and stopping for some more churros.

We ended the day with dinner at our friends' house, a perfectly fitting way to wrap up a great trip. I'm so glad we got the chance to visit them and spend time exploring Madrid and some of the surrounding areas.

After our successful day trip to Toledo, we were really excited to take the train for a day trip to Segovia. Our toddler is in a big transportation phase and absolutely loved that our trip to Segovia had us riding the Metro to the train station and then taking a bus into town once we got off the train in Segovia. He might have found the travel aspect the most fun part of the day.

When you get off the bus in Segovia, you're dropped right in front of the ancient Roman aqueduct. It's an incredibly impressive feat of construction and also a striking first impression as you walk into town.

We didn't linger too long at the aqueduct because we had a tickets to tour the Alcazar that morning. 

We strolled along Segovia's main street to the other end of town where the Alcazar sits overlooking the valley around Segovia. The castle was imposing and when you walk across the drawbridge, you peer down into a massively deep moat. 

Supposedly this castle that the Spanish royal family lived in was the castle the inspired Walt Disney for Cinderella's castle. 

We started our tour down in the dungeon before making our way to the upper levels. 

The castle wasn't as stunning as the palace, but it was still really cool to see this big stone fortress.

The best part of the castle though was after we finished the tour, we were hanging out in courtyard for a bit to let our kiddo run around, and he made friends with a little girl around his age. They were having the best time running back and forth between two points. She was there with her parents and grandparents from Mexico, and we were able to chat a little bit. I got to use some of my rough Spanish, but was grateful their English was far better than my Spanish. 

From the castle, we strolled back toward town, stopping to tour a large gothic-style church. 

We enjoyed the ornate architecture and all the little chapels around the perimeter. Our son kept wanting to go back and see one of the Mary statues and asking us where Jesus was. 

When we got to Segovia's Plaza Mayor, I was ready for lunch, and I was so looking forward to trying suckling pig -- a dish Segovia is famous for. 

We wandered down some side streets and peered at menus in some windows before settling on a place that looked good and didn't have a wait. 

The food definitely lived up to expectations, and I'm so glad we took the time for a longer lunch in Segovia. 

We spent the rest of our time exploring. We walked down side streets, visited the Jewish Quarter and then wrapped up at the Roman Aqueduct. We took a long stroll to the very end of the aqueduct hoping our son would fall asleep in the stroller during that time. But no luck. Not sure if it was the bumpy cobblestone or just the excitement of everything there was to see, but sleeping was not on his agenda. 

We strolled all the way back to the main square where we caught the bus, and had the only bit of travel drama on our trip.

When we got off the bus in the morning, we neglected to look at the bus time tables for when the buses would return. We made an assumption that the ran every 10-15 minutes and we go to the bus stop 45 minutes before our train was scheduled to leave. But bad news for us, the buses only ran every 20 or 25 minutes, and the next bus was scheduled to arrive at the train station like two minutes before our train was supposed to leave. 

We were super nervous, and debated trying to get a cab, but there were none to be found. We waited and when the bus finally arrived, we zipped back to the train station without too many stops along the way. I was so relived. We made it to the station in plenty of time. 

Our kiddo also fell asleep in the stroller on the bus two minutes before we got to the train station. We hoped to be able to get him on the train while still sleeping, but we hit a big bump getting off the bus and he woke up. So hooray, our two year old only took a two minute nap. 

Luckily he was fairly chill and didn't have any meltdowns on the train ride back to Madrid or the metro ride to the hotel. We decided to keep our evening fairly relaxed after our busy day and got him into bed a little bit earlier. 

Ben and I have been debating which day trip was our favorite. I think his vote is Toledo, but I'm truly conflicted. I really loved Segovia. It was so different than Madrid, and it was fun to get a taste of somewhere so different!

We structured our trip trying to alternate more low key days in Madrid with more on-the-go day trips, and our fourth day let us settle back into the groove of Madrid.

Before we left, we had booked tickets to tour the Royal Palace, but the earliest time we could get was 12:30. So I took advantage of our open morning to take us to go see some more art -- specifically Picasso and Dali at the Reina Sofia. 

I remember studying Guernica in art classes and boy seeing it in person was just really something. It's huge and the gallery was crowded because it's the one art work that everyone was intent on seeing, but I looped us through the room twice because the piece was so impressive. 

I also really enjoyed seeing some of the Dali works, and got a chance to appreciate some of Juan Gris' paintings too. 

Again with a toddler this was a fairly quick trip, really focusing on just the highlights, but it was definitely worth it. 

We treated our kiddo to some playground time, and then we all made a pit stop for some churros con chocolate before touring the Royal Palace. 

The Royal Palace was massive -- apparently bigger than Versailles -- and so cool to walk through. I have to say, I also like the flow of this Royal Palace tour better than Versailles too. We did the self guided tour, and while some rooms were definitely crowded, it didn't feel like the crush of humanity we experienced in Versailles. 

The pictures of the palace don't do it justice. 

The gardens however were a little lackluster in comparison to the ones at Versailles. We enjoyed strolling through them, but they definitely didn't wow me as much. 

We spent our Saturday evening with our friends at Madrid's Christmas lighting. Apparently every year in Madrid there's a big event in the city with musical performances before the more than 13 million Christmas lights across the city are all turned on at once. We were lucky enough that we happened to be in town when the event was taking place, and this year it happened to be the earliest that Madrid has turned their lights on. 

They lit up city hall, projecting a movie on the walls before we listened to songs and then celebrated with an awesome fireworks display. 

It was such a cool event and I'm so glad our friends invited us along. So much of our trip was about seeing the sites and being tourists in a new place, and it was really nice that on Saturday night we got a break from that and got to enjoy this experience with the residents of Madrid. 

After two days in Madrid, we decided to venture out of the city for a day trip Toledo. We were really excited to see the history of Toledo and spent the day popping in and out of churches, mosques and synagogues.

We hopped on a high-speed train and reached Toledo in just under 30 minutes. The city sits high on a hill, and while you can walk from the train station, we were very glad we took a city bus because the journey up the city walls would have been more than a little challenging with the stroller. 

The bus let us off right in Toledo's main square, Plaza de Zocodover, and from there we could walk everywhere else. 

Visiting Spain this time of year was so fun because of the Christmas decorations and Christmas markets. Toledo's main holiday market greeted us as soon as we stepped off the bus. 

After snapping a quick pic with Cervantes, we wound our way through the narrow Toledo side streets. 

We were headed for the Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz, a mosque that was eventually converted into a church. 

The building itself was small, but the grounds offered sweeping views outside the walls of the city. 

Our next stop was the Toledo Cathedral. The church itself was massive and ornate.

There was also an entirely separate art museum inside the church, housing more paintings by famous Spanish painters. 

And the crypt houses the bones of St. Ursula, which I didn't realize when we walked down there. 

I'd say we spent about an hour exploring the church because it was so big. 

Our next stop might have been one of my favorite things we saw in the city.

It was another mosque that had been converted to a church. But this one was an archeological site, and you were able to walk underneath the church to see the original mosque architecture. This was also one of the few places we were able to climb the tower with our kiddo because the tower was wide and not a tight spiral staircase.

We made a brief stop at Santo Tome to see El Greco's The Burial of the Count of Orgaz before heading to the Jewish Quarter.

The Jewish Quarter was lovely with cozy cobblestone streets and distinct markers to remind you where you were.

We visited two synagogues here. One of them had been converted into a museum of Jewish history and the other, not surprisingly at this point, had been converted into a church.

We found an adorable playground near the first synangogue and decided to stop for a play break with some stunning views.

Our last religious site visit was to the Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes. This was church was built to be the final resting place of Isabel and Ferdinand, but they ended up being buried elsewhere. So this church sort of just hung out.

After our last site, we strolled back to town to get some lunch. We sat outside, which was lovely in November and ejoyed carcamusa, stew known for its local meats. It was delicious and hearty and warm.

We spent the last of our time in Toledo exploring the Christmas market and just wandering around while our kiddo napped in the stroller. We decided to walk back to the train station since it was downhill, but we didn't factor in the part where we'd have to still walk down a million steps while carrying a sleeping toddler in a stroller. We got to see some cool architecture in the walls as we left the city, but I'm not sure I would recommend this for anyone who has to haul a stroller.

Despite that one hiccup, we absolutely loved our day in Toledo. It was one of our favorite things from the whole trip.