Went to the Sagrada Familia, via La Rambla and various stops on the Metro. Amazingly ran in to Chris from hostel in Granada, had coffee with him after wandering around the San Josef Market, fish, meat, fruit, vegetables ... heaps of variety. (However, I saw someone serving fish smoking a cigarette, don´t know if this is typical in Spain for people involved in food handling to be smoking over the food, but it puts you off a bit.) Finally got the the Sagrada Familia, 8 Euro to get into what is at a practical level is a construction site, albiet a [View Full Entry]

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Well, have arrived in Barcelona after taking a 12 hour overnight train from Granada. (No idea if this is good or bad, the train did stop a few places, might have been less time on a bus, but it still would have been around 900kms by road, I guess it probably would have worked out about the same.) Sorry can´t make any comment on the Spanish countryside as it was dark and/or I was asleep. Arrived in Barcelona at about 10am, took the metro to the station nearest to the hostel, no problems, but the hostel itself was quite hard to [View Full Entry]

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Last day in Granada, so did not do much, however did go to the Eye of Granada, http://www.elojodegranada.com/, which is a camera obscura that gives you panoramic views of Granada. A little hard to find in the lower Albayzin, but worth it. First you watch a film about Granada and the surrounding area and you get to realise that there is more to Granada than the Alhambra. The second part is where you get to look at Granada via the camera obscura, the operator of the machine points out interesting parts of the city and the surrounding area. Probably something that [View Full Entry]

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Went by myself to some of the places visited on the walking tour yesterday, as I tought it would be good to see them at my own pace. Took a few more photos, and also went into the Cathedral. Really big, (apparently one of the biggest in Spain). Probably built on such grand scale (not long after the reconquista) as a symbol that Catholicism and not Islam was the religion of Spain. In the Cathedral there are also some big religious paintings by Alonso Cano. Next went to the Royal Chapel, where you can see the tombs of the Catholic Monarchs [View Full Entry]

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This morning went on a walking tour of Granada. Really good guide from http://www.ciceronegranada.com/ Tour was about the contrast between Moorish/Islamic Granada and Catholic Granada and the transition between the two. Started off outside the town hall of Granada and went to a building that was an old Moorish inn called a Fondak, dating from the 14th Century. (It was taken over by the Catholics and called the Corral del Carbón as it was used as a place for storing coal, it was also used as a theatre). Then we went onto the old silk market, today it seemed full of [View Full Entry]

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Early start to go to the Alhambra, the main attraction here. It has three main parts, the Palacios Nazaríes, (palace of Sultans), the Generalife Gardens, and the Alcazaba, (first castle on the site). All really good, glad that I had booked my ticket to go early as there were crowds even at 930am. In the most visited part, (the Palacios Nazaríes) there were heaps of things to take photos of by it was pretty difficult with everyone wanting to do the same thing. Had an audio guide, which was pretty good value at 3 Euros, it explained a lot about what [View Full Entry]

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Up early to go for a walk up to some hills in the Scaramonte area overlooking Granada to take pictures of the Alhambra. On the way there walked through part of the Albayzin area, lots of narrow streets and white houses, like Córdoba's Jewish area, so of course it is really easy to get lost. But got to the lookout points and the views were worth it. On the way back however decided not to walk through the Albayzin so ended up literally walking on a road around the outside of Granada, took a long time to get back to the [View Full Entry]

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Caught a bus from Córdoba to Granada. Had to get up early to hike to the bus station with my back pack ... Bus left Córdoba about 9am and arrived in Granada about 1130am. Countryside pretty empty, rolling hills again, alot of what I guess are olive trees, but also some fields of sunflowers. Not much else. Passed through a couple of small towns, but that was about it. Went out to a few bars for the tapas thing with some room mates from the hostel. (Amy and Ryan (Brian?) from Minnesota, Chris from California/Nigeria/Philippines, and Mary from Florida/Texas.) Visited 5 [View Full Entry]

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Went to the Alcázar of the Christian Kings. A few good views of Córdoba from its towers, but the best thing were its gardens. Want to see more photos? Have a look at my website here: http://www.firemanonasailingship.com/photos/ [View Full Entry]

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Tried to get away from the main tourist area this morning before it got too hot. Was heading towards some old Moorish walls, heaps of churches along the way, but it was hard to take photos as they seemed very close up to houses or on narrow streets, it was hard to step back to get all of the building in the frame. Did take a photo of an old Minaret tower, which now has a church next to it. (Minaret of San Juan Square). Went back to the Plaza Corredera to see if there were any more people than yesterday. [View Full Entry]

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