Granada, tierra sonada por mi

Granada, Land of my Dreams

Now with photos!

View of the Alhambra from the Albaicin

There were two sites I wanted to see in Spain, Toledo and the Alhambra in Granada.  But due to a combination of lack of battery power in the devices, lack of wifi, problems with credit cards, and lack of initiative due to a bad cold that's gone from me to Leo (Janet so far is fighting it off), we were not able to secure tickets to see the Alhambra, a big disappointment.  (These factors also account for the brevity and the infrequency of my blogs.)

Granada itself is a busier, grittier city than Cordoba, and did not make an initial good impression.  There seemed to be surly young men loitering around every atm machine.

But we discovered the free entry to the Alhambra grounds, and on the second day we walked around the Albaicin, the former Arab quarter built on the hill opposite the Alhambra.  Lots of white houses on winding narrow passages (sound familiar yet?)

 leading up to miradors with views of the Alhambra.

Another view of the Alhambra from the Albaicin

After a cafe con leche in a cafe overlooking the Darro River which flows between the Albaicin and the Alhambra,

we walked up and checked out the free portion of the Alhambra,

The beautiful (and free) gate to the Alhambra

including the Arab baths and the Parador, the 4* hotel on the grounds,

Detail of ceiling in the Parador

and views back to the Albaicin.  We could tell where we'd been by spotting a construction crane next to the garden of Granada's (active) mosque, right next to the St. Nicolas Iglesia and it's larger, busier plaza.

Finally, we secured tickets to a 7:30 pm performance at the Casa de los Flamencos.  This was perfect for older, teetotalling tourists like ourselves who don't want to stay up late in a smoky bar waiting for the performers to show up.  The show featured a guitarist, singer, and  a male and female dancer.  They were all excellent, especially the male dancer, and I swear I recognized the singer from a documentary on flamenco that I watched a year ago on Netflix.  This performance was the highlight of our trip so far for me.

Big mistake of the day:  Our rule is never to drive in the city.  We park the car at the campsite and take the bus it town.  But we wanted to go to the Decathlon, a low price sporting goods store we' d seen on the way into town, to pick up gaz for our campstove. We punched it into our gps and followed the instructions.  But we mixed one turn and found ourselves on a narrow road heading uphill. Suddenly it dead ended with a no entry one way and the only option was an even narrower back alley, heading higher up the hill.  We had to go up this lane to find a turn around.  Then a car met us the other way. We managed to back up to let him through.  We turned a corner with inches to spare.Then we banged our side mirror against a parked van.  We found a place to turn around, then met 2 more cars.  There was no way we could back up, but the other driver motioned us forward where there was a corner we could back into so they could pass.  Then we squeezed through the narrow corner at an even more awkward angle and made our way back to the narrow 2 way road.  Needless to say the trip to Decathlon was aborted.  We slunk back to the campsite and did not move the car again till we left town.  Hero of the day:  Leo, for getting us out of that alley without damaging our rental car.


Bird of the day:  A European Robin playing in the gutter on the path up to the Alhambra, the first we've seen this trip.

The robin, captured by reluctant birder Janet, on her cellphone

As you may be able to tell, wifi, battery power and blogging MOJO are back.