Hot Air Balloon Rides in Toledo

Toledo sits on a granite spur, and the Tagus loops around three sides of it. From the ground you get that loop in pieces, one viewpoint at a time. From a basket a few hundred metres up you get all of it at once: a walled city on an island of rock, the river below it in a real gorge, the Castilian plain running south. Flights lift off from the La Peraleda fairground, the open ground just north of the river, and cost around 205 EUR per person.

The Alcazar comes into view first. Its four corner towers stand higher than anything else on the ridge, and the cathedral spire rises a short way to the west of them. Below the walls the Tagus runs through its gorge, crossed by the Puente de Alcantara at the eastern end of the bend and the Puente de San Martin at the western one. The far bank climbs into the cigarrales, the walled country estates Toledo families built to escape the summer heat, and beyond those the Montes de Toledo close the horizon. Turn the other way and the ground flattens into the grain and olive country of La Sagra, towards Madrid. Since a balloon goes where the wind takes it, no two mornings trace the same line over the city, and the pilot picks the exact launch spot at dawn to suit the day's drift.

Balloons fly here through most of the year, with spring and autumn the steadiest windows. Summer crews launch at first light because the plain heats fast and the air roughens by mid-morning, while winter brings sharp visibility, cold hands and more scrubbed mornings. Read up on how the seasons change a flight before you pick a date. Time in the air is usually 60 to 90 minutes. After the landing comes a glass of cava and a printed flight certificate, part of a ballooning tradition Spanish crews keep up properly. The weather call is made a few hours before take-off, and a cancelled morning is routine rather than a sign of a bad operator, so keep a spare day in the itinerary. Dress for a field at dawn: closed shoes, layers you can shed once the sun is over the ridge.