Granada

This is another catch-up post. The text was written not long after we left Granada when it was still reasonably fresh. The pictures, of which there are many, took longer. It should appear in the correct sequence, and subscribers should get notice it's here. (Fingers crossed as I click the Publish button.)

Ines, our landlady in Valencia, had agreed to let us leave a little later than the usual check-out time. We in fact got out about 10:30, and walked, with all our luggage, the five blocks to Angel Guimera subway station. There’s an elevator there down to the ticket machines, and then escalators to the platform levels, so it wasn’t too bad. We waited about seven minutes for a train and were all, thankfully, able to sit for the 20-minute ride out to the airport. We had a very straightforward, if long, time getting our car from Avis, a small Fiat SUV that just barely fit all our luggage. We will drive it all the way to Lisbon.

The drive to Granada was long, but on very good divided highways, and the weather was fabulous. We stopped once at a service centre for a bathroom break and picnic lunch in the parking lot. The scenery was interesting. I hadn’t realized southern Spain was quite so mountainous. We were constantly going up and down. Our ears were popping. Near the end, we were astonished to find ourselves driving across a high plain toward snow-capped mountains. These weren’t hills with remnants of snow left over from winter. It looked like permanent snow, or ice, cover. I think the mountains we were looking at were the Sierra Nevadas, which loom over Granada.

Granada is nothing like I imagined. First, there are the mountains above it. And the town itself is fairly hilly too. Our apartment was in the Albaicin, a very old section of narrow, winding streets at the top of a hill, overlooking the Alhambra. The landlord’s recommendation was to park in one of the public parking lots in the modern city, and take a cab up the hill to the apartment. That’s what we did, sort of. Miss TomTom navigated us to one of the recommended parking lots, which was very convenient to the highway. I called Jamie, the onsite manager, from a little cafe near the parking lot. He urged us to take a cab if we had luggage. Being cheap, we decided to try walking anyway. We got so far, then the walking became impossible, with steep grades and cobbled streets. So we hailed a cab, which took us the rest of the way.

The apartment was great, if a little rustic, in a very old building, next to a small church. Our unit was one of four for rent to tourists (there are two others on the ground floor, one of them Jamie’s, the other occupied by a young fellow who appeared to be helping Jamie.) Ours was up a couple of flights. It had everything we needed, including two bedrooms, one with a rather silly Jacuzzi bathtub that I’m sure no one has used in ages. It looked excruciatingly uncomfortable. The Hoots had that room. There was a lovely terrace on the roof, with an obstructed view of the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevadas beyond.

Jamie is a 30-something Brit who has been in Spain for eight years, he told us. He has an accent that sounded like London to me, although he’s actually from Coventry. But it's London (or Coventry) with strong Spanish intonations. He told us English people sometimes mistake him for Spanish and compliment him on his English. I almost made the same mistake. His name on the front door buzzer system is Jaime, the Spanish form, which increases the confusion.

View from our bedroom window

Tourist shop in Placa Nuevo - one of a gazillion in the neighbourhood

We arrived before dark and settled in, then walked down the hill through a very touristy shopping area. Dozens of restaurants and shops selling souvenirs and other junk spill out onto the narrow, alley-like streets. There was barely room to get by. Our agenda was threefold: pick up our Alhambra tickets at the ticket office in the old town, shop for breakfast basics and have a dinner out. We achieved all three, eventually. There was a line-up at the ticket office, it took us awhile to find the very small tienda – no more Mercadona supermarkets for us. Our restaurant choice was a mistake: a place in the middle of the tourist mess, selling middle Eastern food. It was authentic in so far as it was run by Muslims (no alcohol – horrors!) The food was only okay – falafel to start, followed by chicken tangine, none of it very flavourful. It at least wasn’t terribly expensive.

Pretending we're enjoying ourselves at cheesy Middle Eastern restaurant/tourist trap

The next morning – cold but sunny – we got up very early and hiked down the hill the way we had gone the night before, then up the hill on the other side of the river valley to Alhambra. 

Alhambra battlements in morning light with town in background

Our timed tickets got us into the site at 8:30 a.m. The signposting was poor and we weren’t sure where we were supposed to be going. Keep in mind this is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Jamie had given us directions that bypassed the main entrance and ticket booths – since we theoretically already had our tickets. After a fairly arduous climb, especially arduous for Karen with her wonky knees, we finally found the entrance to the Nasrid Palaces, one of the principal attractions, and the place where the tickets were timed. We arrived well before 8:30.

When the ticket taker finally came out to where we were lined up and looked at our tickets, she explained none too kindly in Spanish, with a few words of English thrown in, that Pat’s and Ralph’s and my tickets were not right. Because they were seniors/pensioners tickets, we had to go all the way over to the main entrance – 15 to 20 minutes away – and verify that we qualified for the discounted price. So basically there had been no point in picking up the tickets the night before. We were very concerned we would miss our entry time slot. We practically ran all the way. Karen stayed behind.

Alhambra, Nasrid Palaces - a teaser

When we got to the ticket office, a security guard let us jump the queue. As it turned out, we did not qualify for the discounted price, because we’re not European Union passport holders. We saw something to this effect at the website, after we'd booked the tickets, but it was ambiguous, and we assumed we would be able to pay any supplement wherever we entered. But given this is a UNESCO World Heritage site, presumably partly funded by an international organization to which Canada pays dues, why did we not qualify for the discount anyway? We had to fork over an extra 5€ each. As it turned out, our tickets let us enter any time up to 9:30, so we made it back to the Nasrid Palaces in plenty of time.

View of Granada from Nasrid Palaces

That’s the end of the negatives. The rest is off-the-charts positive. Alhambra is fantastic, one of the most interesting and beautiful historical sites I’ve seen, and I've seen a few. We did visit the Moorish palace at Seville when we were there six years ago, and it’s pretty impressive, but nothing compared to this.

Nasrid Palaces

The site, originally a Roman fortification, was built on by the Spanish Moors in 889, then forgotten, until it was seriously developed in the 1300s. It eventually became the royal palace of Yusuf I, Sultan of Granada, in the mid-1300s. Moorish Spain was mostly reconquered by Christian princes in the late 1200s, but Granada held out until 1492. (Date sound familiar?) 

Part of an inscription of a poem carved in plaster around a courtyard

Nasrid Palaces

The Nasrid Palaces is the most awesome part of the site, a series of linked rooms, courtyards, reflecting pools. Despite the hoards of tourists overrunning the place (yes, even at this time of year), it was easy to imagine how tranquil these spaces would be for the royals who inhabited them.

Intricately carved coffered plaster ceiling

Nasrid Palaces, garden courtyard

After the maze-like medieval Moorish Nasrid Palaces, the calm classical beauty of the Palace of Charles V, a massive Renaissance structure built on the grounds in the 16th century, comes as a very cool contrast. The fabulous circular courtyard and arcaded mezzanine inside are a photographer's dream. 

Alhambra, Charles V Palace

The Charles V Palace also houses the Alhambra art gallery. After much debate, we decided not to go in. They wanted a paltry fee because we were non-EU citizens. At this point, we were feeling a little battered by and resentful about discriminatory pricing, and declined. Ralph did later try to pass for Dutch, but as he wasn't wearing his wooden shoes, the attendant didn't believe him.

Alhambra, Charles V Palace

The military defenses, a series of towers and crenelated curtain walls affording awesome views across the city and the mountains beyond, were another highlight, among many. 

Alhambra military defenses - impregnable

And then there were the gardens. It was all a little too much. 

Alhambra gardens: tired tourists

Alhambra, royal gardens

We ended up spending almost five hours there, and didn’t by any means see everything – or probably do justice to what we did see. I think I beat my personal record for most pictures taken in one day: close to 200 - hence the large number shown here. We headed back to our apartment by a slightly different route down the hill from Alhambra. 

Off-duty belly dancer mugging for the tourists

We had a lovely picnic lunch on our rooftop terrace. It was warm and sunny by this time. The views out towards the Alhambra and the mountains, obstructed as they are, were wonderful. We were revived, or thought we were.

Lunch on the rooftop terrace

View of Alhambra and Sierra Nevadas from our rooftop terrace

About 3:30, we set out again to do a recommended walk along the river that runs under Alhambra through the lower edge of Albaicin. We got about a quarter of the way along the route and decided it was just too crazy busy. The city was jammed with tourists. It was a Saturday evening. The young were out in force – this is a university town and a backpackers’ mecca. They were lounging on the bridges and ambling along the river, drinking in the pubs, enjoying the buskers along the way, (including, as it happens, some very good performers.) 

So we cut back up through the less tourist-y parts of the Albaicin, heading back to our apartment. The reviving effects of our lunch break had evaporated and we realized we were completely knackered.

Ralph and I left Pat and Karen near the apartment to make their own way home, and headed down to the car park to retrieve Karen’s bathroom kit, which she had left in her big suitcase in the car. We walked fast, mostly in a direct route, found the car park, retrieved the bathroom kit and walked back, stopping in at a small supermarket for beer and meat for dinner. 

By the time we got back and fought our way through the Saturday night crowd on the shopping street a few blocks below our apartment, we were exhausted. We also got back too late for the highly-recommended view of Alhambra from Mirador San Nicolas in the rays of the setting sun. It would have been another ten-minute walk up the hill anyway and nobody had energy left. So we spent the evening in.

Granada, Albaicin: our street

Granada, Albaicin: night scenes (it's a big furry dog)

We had permission from Jamie to leave whenever we wanted the next day. He had nobody coming in to take our unit until later in the week. We got out at about 10:30 and walked up through the Albaicin to the Mirador. It is indeed a fabulous view of Alhambra and the mountains beyond, but it was already, at this early hour on a Sunday, packed with tourists and local church goers. We enjoyed the view, even if it was a bit hazy, then wandered around the hilltop. There isn’t a lot else to see. We did spot quite a few restaurants that would have been far preferable to the mediocre place we went to the first night.

Panoramic view of Alhambra from Mirador San Nicolas, atop Albaicin (click to enlarge)

Back at the apartment, we did our final packing. We had asked Jamie to call a cab for us at 12:30. A few minutes before, we went out on the street, but it was almost a half hour before the guy showed up, cursing about some traffic jam he’d been stuck in. It was a very expensive cab ride. Apparently if you order a cab – or maybe only if you order a cab to come up to Albaicin – they start the meter when they set out to pick you up. The final fare was over 16€. I hope we weren’t ripped off, but it felt like it. He drove us right into the parking garage. On the plus side, we did save a little on the parking because we got a weekend rate: 32€ instead of 40€.

So ended Granada.