The Alpujarras

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We didn't spent all of our time eating food and taking pics of the Alhambra. One of our day trips was to traipse into the Sierra Nevada to see the snow. Now, we were under absolutely no illusions that we were going to go do anything physically strenuous like actually snowboarding or skiing or snowshoeing. Or no - that would be too much work. We were going to drive to the snowfields, LOOK at the snow, and come back.

And yes, again, we are that sad 😊

Another sight in the Sierra Nevada is the Alpujarras. This region is inhabited by Berbers, and their dwellings are very similar to what we've seen in Tunisia (think white domed houses, with a large part of the house underground, kinda like an igloo with a basement). So we were quite keen to see these as well.

Granada is right on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, so it's a really short and pleasant drive up - within minutes we were seeing snow. More alarmingly, our car started flashing an indicator on the dashboard, indicating that the temperature was almost zero degrees. We weren't really sure what to do about that - I mean, were we meant to stop driving and go back? Maybe we were not meant to stop? Maybe this was a courtesy to make sure we were adequately prepared when we got out of the car? I don't know - at the back of my mind I recalled hearing about this thing called antifreeze that people put into cars in cold countries, but I honestly couldn't recall if this was necessary for short drives.

Oh well. Throwing caution to the winds we continued our drive.

We didn't really need the car thermometer to tell us about the adverse environment out there. One of the fun features of our little VW Golf was that it seemed to leak air from the outside into the passenger foot area, resulting in poor Catherine having to put up with sub-zero 80kmh winds blowing up her pants. At least we were able to mitigate it by putting three sets of jackets around her legs. She was very good about it all, and only complained every 5 minutes or so...

But all this was worth it, because we had really gorgeous scenery to look at! so every couple of minutes I was stopping the car, popping out, taking pics, getting back in the car, calming my wife down who was sick of me stopping all the time, and continuing on... 😊

We had picked a couple of villages to look at. When we finally got to the first, it was raining/sleeting! So our visit was made somewhat unpleasant by the cold and the rain... we were also obviously the only tourists in town, so the locals kept staring at us. English was at an all-time low, so Catherine's Spanish skills came in handy again!

The villages themselves were gorgeous. On a beautiful summer's day, with no rain or snow, this would be a great place to visit. Lots of brilliant white buildings with flowerpots hanging from the walls, dark cobbled roads and pavements, little cafes, lots of cute art shops...

Would really recommend coming out to see these if you are in the area - it's not very far, and very pretty. But do not try to do this on public transport! We saw a couple of backpackers who had obviously caught a bus up to the first waypoint in the mountains - they were in for some serious walking to get around to see the other villages! Made us glad we had our car, even with the air leak 😊

OK, that's all for now... time to go back to Granada, pack our bags, and head to Barcelona!!

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