images of the city of sl-Toledo

These are some of the many possibilities that Toledo has to make visits with an OFFICIAL TOURISM GUIDE, both in organized groups and hiring a private guide, day or night.

Here are some ways to get to know and visit Toledo:

A Celtiberian settlement is already known on this hill, but its entrance into history dates back to 192 B. C., when it was conquered by Marco Fulbio Nobilior.

The Roman civilization called it Toletum and in this Era temples, theatres, amphitheaters, circuses, walls and aqueducts were built. Some of the remains of these buildings are still visible, as is the case with the Roman Circus in the Vega Baja area. With the disappearance of Roman Hispania, the city was occupied by the Germanic peoples. With Leovigildo, the Visigoths will make it their capital, extending their kingdom to the entire Peninsula. With the conversion of its king Recaredo, in 587, and the celebration of the Visigothic councils in it, the city began to be linked with Christianity, being today the Primate See of the Spanish Church.

The Muslims, at the beginning of the 8th century, conquered it by calling it Tuleitulah. From then on, tolerance between the three cultures and religions, Jewish, Muslim and Christian, began to take shape.

The Christian troops of Alfonso VI entered Toledo on May 25,1085, putting an end to the Arab domination. In those medieval centuries, the city of Toledo is the seat of the Court and capital of the Castilian monarchy. It was in those centuries that the so-called "Escuela de Traductores de Toledo"was developed, under the auspices of Alfonso X.
Toledo in the 16th century reached its greatest splendour, even after the transfer of the capital to Madrid. The population was then about 70,000 inhabitants, a figure that has only been surpassed in the last years of the twentieth century. The really important institution that remained in Toledo is the Church, so it became considered as the second Rome, and some call it between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries "the convent city".

In this environment, a Cretan painter named Domenico Theotocopuli, known as El Greco, will produce his best paintings, and after a period of isolation, the Royal White Arms Factory, first and the Infantry Academy and other foundations, then revitalize Toledan life and commerce.

Today it is a modern city, capital of the Community of Castilla La Mancha, declared a World Heritage City in 1986 by UNESCO, well communicated, with a cultural and leisure offer as few in Spain, and remains the Imperial City, the city of museums, the city of legends and much more.