We’re nearing the end of our Spanish journey. Today was another transition day where we changed cities from Sevilla to Granada. We started with breakfast at the dining table in the suite – rolls with incredible cheese and ham (okay, rice cakes for me but the fillings were great!), yogurt and chocolate croissants with take away coffee and juice from a local coffee shop. That got us up and on the road by 10 am for the 3 hour drive to Granada. I’d like to say it was a charming drive but it was 200+ kilometers of olive groves, sunflower plants and lots of brown.
We got to Granada just before lunch and the rooms weren’t ready so we started to wander around town. This place seems to have much more of a “big city” feel to it as there doesn’t seem to be an old town proper like there has been in most of the other cities we’ve visited. We had a light lunch at a cafe on one of the many squares because it was hotter than Hades! Then we traipsed back to the hotel to get things sorted.
First on the agenda was to print out our boarding passes for tomorrow’s flight to Scotland – I can imagine that I’ll have an entire chapter to write about our Ryan Air experience but I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Second, head to the Alhambra which was the entire reason we came to Granada. We headed out and encountered our first raindrops of the entire trip. It lasted about 10 minutes (during which I was afraid I would break my neck on the smooth wet marble-tiled sidewalks!) We found the local bus – our first experience with public transportation this trip – and headed up the big hill to the big palace. That’s when we found out that there were no more tickets for today! When the guidebooks suggest booking in advance, they mean it!
So back down the hill to book tickets for tomorrow (9am – ugh!) and do some shopping. This was not my idea of a nice way to spend the day but apparently my teens were in need of European bargains so off we went. We took a short sangria break – Gilly joined us this time – and then proceeded to close the shops down. Net haul: a windbreaker and cool new shoes for Duncan. Finally, our last dinner of tapas and vino blanco before we spent the last hour or so wrestling with the cases to make sure that none went over the 20kg limit that I paid for. Now to see if we can get the sword on as an extra piece of luggage – stay tuned!
Three things we noticed today:
- Spanish cities have definite layers: the first ring of outskirts have furniture stores (muebles), the second has automotive industries, and the third is strip clubs.
- A local store here sold Hammer pants style shorts for men – nuff said.
- A 4 euro bottle of wine from the convenience store is as good as anything we’ve gotten in a restaurant. We thought so last night when we first opened it but verified it when we finished the bottle during packing tonight.
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