Granada 13th October

This afternoon we headed into Granada lateish, we went to the Science Museum. In hindsight we didn't leave enough time for such a big and interesting place, but we didn't realise that at the time. Our first stop was just in the courtyard where we stopped to pose with Einstein as pictured below.

This was one of two of these "discs" about 50 metres apart. When standing inside one, if you whispered, anyone standing in the other one could hear what you said. Hilary, Di and Jo had fun with this.

The second part of the Escher exhibition was on display here, I forgot to say but that was one of the highlights of our trip to the Alhambra too, there was an escher exhibition on temporary display there, complete with a number of his drawings and a very good film about/of his drawings. In this part of the exhibition there were a few dozen of his works, they really are fascinating, though Hilary struggled with them because I guess she couldn't understand them, they didn't fit into a particular box, or they just didn't work. Not sure, she got quite twitchy watching them though and really wanted to "get it".

In the room of mirrors.

Part of the modern building which houses the exhibitions

Diana standing on the "heat detector" spot, which was then projected onto a screen.

At the museum there were excellent displays, many about the human body with sections on genes, anatomy, senses and many others. As I said, we didn't allow nearly enough time for more than a cursory glimpse at a few sections before we had to head off for the "bird of prey" demonstration. Again, in hindsight, it wasn't the best use of our time as the commentary was completely in Spanish, and though it was interesting watching the birds do their thing, we missed out on a lot. Once there we couldn't escape without being very rude though so we had to sit still, even though the bloke went on for 45 minutes and we knew closing time was approaching! It is a bit naughty actually, the museum closes up many of the exhibits 30 minutes before closing, so though it says the museum is open until 5 I think it was, we couldn't get to do anything other than look in the shop after the bird display as the viewing tower, butterfly house, and other things we wanted to see had closed. Very disappointing.

We had a date with the Alambra for a night-time visit to the Palaces for tonight so we walked back up that way, stopped for a pizza and beer at a little bar/cafe before heading up the road in the darkness to the side door which was closer to where we needed to be than the main gates (it is a huge complex). We waited on the wall in the warm evening, glittering lights of the town below, and the castle walls bathed in golden (artificial light) until 10.30 when we were allowed to go inside for our visit. It was certainly beautiful, impossible to get photos though as it was very dim inside and there were lots of people crowded around. The plasterwork and tiling and pillars were great though,  though the climax "the patio of the lions" was all ripped up as they are renovating the fountains etc. which I found very disappointing and frustrating, as I hadn't realised and had really been looking forward to that part.

The visit lasts about an hour and a half I think, which is actually plenty of time, but I had visions of superb photos like the ones you see on postcards, and it wasn't to be (at all).

A turret from the Alcazaba

Granada through window arches

A very dark Patio de Arraynes

Granada 12th October

Today we had a slightly later start as we were all still pretty bushed from our big day, but eventually we headed back into Granada town and walked around the small streets under the Alhambra on the opposite side of town to the Arab quarter. It was just a gentle meander, and the town was bustling with life as it was a public holiday, people out eating and drinking at dozens of cafes around the city. (Apparently Spain has the highest number of cafes/restaurants per head of population in the world, I can quite believe that too, as every second establishment seems to be of that genre).

A band playing in the street

A Granadian resident

The red velvet? blankets out the windows had some significance to the fiesta, but not sure what.

Some of the tapas bars

More food places

Council building complete with red blanket

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One of the small streets


After our walk we too decided to join the throngs and had a tapas lunch at the same establishment we had dinner at the night before. It was much busier today, we had a little to eat, a drink and then headed off. We were going to go to the science museum, but thought it would be a bit much, so instead headed back to try to find a park near the bus stop to sit and read for a while. we couldn't find any grass, but instead found a medieval market with all sorts of food stalls and action, so had a browse around there before heading back to La zubia

Our tapas lunch

Choosing an ice cream (helados)

A warm and busy Granada main street

The Medieval Market



Strange Medieval type men playing strange medieval type music

Granada 11th October

Granada 11^th October.

We had tickets for the Alhambra for this afternoon. I had managed to book some online a few days earlier, but because we had left it so late there wasn’t a lot of choice about what and when we could see things. I had thought it being autumn that there wouldn’t have been as much demand for tickets, and there probably wasn’t compared to the height of summer, but nevertheless it is the thing to do in Granada and so tickets were patchy. I managed to get an afternoon ticket for everything except the palaces for Tuesday (today) and then an evening ticket to see the palaces under lights on Thursday, it was actually quite  a good way of doing it in hindsight because there is so much to see that trying to fit everything into one visit would be impossible.

Anyway, we had a leisurely start to the morning, caught the bus into town and followed our path from the day before up to the base of the hill leading to the Alhambra. We had a couple of maps and followed those in combination with street signs up through the wooded area, past the water running down channels  lining both sides of the steep path, past the seats that were placed parallel to the path and consequently had one leg longer than the other to make them flat (but made them look very uneven to the eye), up to the ticket office. You can get your tickets issued from a machine if you have booked electronically, so we headed over to the machines and tried to get our tickets. One lot worked fine, but the machine ate the ones for today’s admission so we had to line up anyway in the long queue to get a human to issue them.  Once we had our tickets we lined up in an even longer queue waiting for the opportunity to enter at 2pm. Though the queue was very long, once the gates were open, it flowed very quickly, so we were all inside ready to explore slightly before 2 (they must have opened the gates early).

Heading up the hill to the Alhambra

This bloke was making a tray in the parquet style. Hand chiselling/cutting each little piece

Part of the gardens within the complex

The gardens within the Alhambra complex

Me, Hilary and Jo

Beautiful reflection on the pond of the Palacio del Partal

In the Generalife gardens the Patio de la Acequia

Looking back from the Alcazaba

Foundations of the army barracks (not a maze)

Some the the intricate plasterwork, unfortunately my photos didn't work

Some more inside work

The Palace of Carlos V

A view through the Sala Regia

A view from the Alcazaba (fortress area)

We spent a wonderful afternoon wandering around the Alhambra, our ticket was from 2-8pm and we didn't leave a minute early. As I said earlier, we didn't have tickets to the Palaces for this visit which was just as well because we caouldn't have fitted it all in within the time limit anyway, as it was we were tired by the end, and had got our money's worth but we were still enjoying the gardens and the light of the golden setting sun when it was time to leave.
We caught a little loacl bus down the hill, our feet were weary and it was dark, it was a great way to view the skinny little streets we hadn't otherwise enjoyed. The bus deposited us near to the main thoroughfare we had been using, and we were just about to head around looking for somewhere for dinner when a young man came up to us, touting for business (selling dinner, nothing more). He was handing out flyers for a tapas bar very nearby, and so we decided that was as good a place as any to eat. he was lovely, chatting away in a very friendly manner, excited when he knew we were from NZ, and started to sing Crowded House and Split Enz songs to show he knew where we were from.
We sat outside in the balmy evening enjoying the menu del dia and a beer, followed up by grenadine (of course, very nice, a bit like raspberry juice with apple, but of course being Grenada, it had to be pomegranite).
We caught our bus back to La Zubia after walking through the town, enjoying the lights and the business of the city. Very tired, but a lovely tired where you have had a good but full day.

Granada 10th October

We caught the bus from across the road from the campground at La Zubia and headed into Granada. The ride is about 20 minutes I guess, initially through semi-rural horticultural land which has a variety of crops, persimmon trees bearing large quantities of fruit which changed colour from pale yellow to pale orange in the two weeks that we saw them for, also other fruit trees ? custard apples? and olives. There were also a couple of paddocks with horses in, one horse we nicknamed The Dalmation because it was white with black spots, looking very much like a larger version of something my eldest sister might have as a companion.

We weren't exactly sure where the bus would take us, but we rode it until everyone else got off and the driver looked expectantly at us. We did have a map so we were able to figure out where we were and where we wanted to be headed quite easily.

Just of the bus, getting our bearings

Initially we headed off up a very pretty dual carriage way with a very wide tree lined pedestrian walkway down the middle of it, with hawkers selling belts, jewellery and other wares lining its edges. We came upon

a church tucked in beside other buildings and decided to wade our way past the beggars sitting outside shaking paper cups at us, and have a squizz inside.

Inside the wee church!

We walked a bit further up the very gentle slope towards the bustling centre of town and discovered some stalls/temporary shops selling everything from jewellery to clothes, bread and pastries, wooden toys and more jewellery. We stopped and had a bit of a browse before succumbing to our first coffee of the day.

Drinking coffee and planning our route

There are interesting sculptures, statues, fountains and monuments scattered around the streets of Granada (and other Soanish cities too), one fountain up near where we had our coffee was spraying misty water in the sunshine which created very pretty rainbows in the air, which we duely admired.

Fountain with rainbows

 We headed up further into the older part of town heading for a mirador (view point or look out) which we had noticed on our map, and which was in the direction which would take us into the narrow and steep streets of the Arab area which was highlighted as a place to see. We couldn't follow the map very easily but had a fine time clambering up steep steps, negotiating narrow alley ways and streets climbing higher and higher, sure we would get a view at some stage. We did finally find the place (along with half of Europe) and we admired the stunning view across to the Alhambra before sitting in the sun/semi-shade and eating our picnic rolls and drinking lashings of fluid. 

After lunch we wound our way back down through the Arab Quarter, past small shops in dark and narrow alleys, brightened only by the colourful materials hanging outside the entrances and other brightly coloured wares of mostly African origin.

View from the mirador looking over Granada

 

Checking out the wares in the Arab district

We headed down the hill further to check out the Palace Real and the Cathedral, they were closed at that stage so we instead had another drink sitting in the sunshine waiting for the opening time. While we were standing outside the cathedral looking at the incredible detailed stonework we were approached by gypsy type women who were trying to "give away" pieces of rosemary, "for remembrance". You'd sure remember them when you looked back on your travels, they expected payment for them. We didn't have anything to do with them having been bitten years before, but we did watch a few other people being fleeced. They wouldn't accept coins and were very aggressive at getting as much paper money out of people as they could. I don't think they actually went so far as to empty your wallet when you didn't realise it, I don't think they had that skill, but they were very good at pressuring people into parting with large amounts of cash for a droopy piece of probably stolen from the council gardens, rosemary.

As I said, the detailing on the cathedral is amazing, I’m sure when it was built it would have stood out away from other buildings so you could gaze in awe at it, but it is quite built out now so to get a good view requires a lot of neck craning and just small snatches of the façade at a time.

We did head back to the cathedral after our coffees, and were treated to another lavishly decorated, golden building, which was a huge cavernous affair. When viewed later from the Alhambra it is stunning in its size, a truly immense structure amongst the other buildings.

Once we had viewed the cathedral inside and out, we headed back down the tree lined street, past the “pomegranate” fountain (Granada is named after the pomegranate as it grows naturally down there, and the pomegranate is represented frequently, on the Spanish flag down the very bottom of the crest, on the local council crest, on the top of bollards in the street, on the top of water covers, and on this rather gorgeous fountain), found our bus stop for the trip back to La Zubia.

It was really great having the bungalow for the first few days of Jo’s stay, it meant we had a little more room, and a little “space” from each other (not Jo, but all of us, Hilary loved having a room when we first arrived (before we picked up Jo) and headed onto her own bed and stayed there for a few hours, just having self-imposed time out. It wasn’t the flashest of campgrounds or bungalows. For 75euro a night you could expect better, but that appears to be the going rate in these more popular tourist destinations. It was a wooden structure, inside and out, surrounded by trees, with low wattage light-bulbs, all combining to make it very gloomy inside. The hot water was intermittent making showering a test of character, the hot water jug didn’t work, there was no plug in the sinks (making dishwashing a challenge if we hadn’t been equipped with everything necessary in the truck), and as I said, the natural gas was very dubious, with men digging around in holes beside big tanks for the duration of our stay and the smells wafting on the breeze, somewhat unpleasant. However, we managed to sleep well (mostly) and had space, so all was good.

Inside Granada Cathedral

October 9th Motril to Granada

We headed north from Motril towards Granada about kms inland. We had a date to pick up my middle big sister, Jo, who was coming to stay with us for nearly two weeks. We needed to be at the Granada airport at 1935 to meet her plane from Madrid (she lives in Auckland but was flying via Madrid amongst other airports) and needed to sort out some accommodation in Granada first. The drive up was lovely, the scenery very stunning in a stark sort of way, and many huge viaducts which the newish motorway tracked over instead of rising and falling with the natural terrain over chasms and high cliffs.

We made a small detour up to a spa town called Lonjaron in the foothills almost I guess you'd say of the Sierra Nevada. We wandered along the streets, peeked down alley ways, looked at a fes artisan's shops, bought some fruit and vegetables, nougat, figgy stuff, and honey before heading on to Granada.

Scenes of Lanjaron

Looking back at Lanjaron

We continued our journey to Granada, founda camping spot at a place called La Zubia which was a small town, almost attached to Granada, certainly on the bus route straight into town, but quite a distance from the airport.
We booked a cabin or bungalow for 4, it cost far more than it should have, and we had to pay for the truck on top of it, but it was convenient and apart from the constant smell of rotten natural gas coming from the ground by the showers, it suited us well for our Granada stay.

We settled in and then at about 6.50pm left for the airport to pick up Jo.
It was great to see her when she finally emerged, exhausted but doing well after her long, long-haul flight from NZ.