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Published: October 28th 2013
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The English art of the queue was much in evidence the following morning, as we waited at Malaga Bus Station for the 10.30 ALSA departure to Granada. The bus arrived from it's starting point in Algeciras and in true European style, the order disintegrated. The lack of assigned seating clearly played a part, as the aim of the exercise was to avoid sitting on the sunny side of the bus as it travel northward. The investment in the tickets the previous day had been a good plan. The bus was not far from capacity. Despite the scramble, we achieved the non-sunny side of the bus. The bus climbed out of Malaga on the motorway, before reaching olive country. The next 1 1/2 hours was a view largely of olive trees.............. and so to Granada.
Unlike in Malaga, Granada has a new bus station some way out of the city centre. A new tram is under construction ......... that sounds familiar ......... to link it to the main areas of the downtown, but for the time being the majority were on the bus to the Avenue de la Constitucion. We disembarked opposite the Parque Fuente Nueva and turned right. This time
we should have turned left, so after the Malaga experience we can conclude that we aren't doing very well on the hotel finding front. The room wasn't ready for another 30 minutes, so as we'd just passed the bull ring we reckoned that might kill the time. The bull ring was open ........ Granada's Sunday market was underway. The bull ring architecture was of more interest than the market, but it did the job and the room was ready when we got back to the hotel. We installed ourselves in our 15th floor abode, complete with huge balcony. The balconies on the other side of the building would have been better, as that was facing the Alhambra - still can't complain, as it was extremely useful for sitting in the warm sunshine with a couple of cans of cerveza Alhambra from the mini-supermarket on the corner. The Chinese guy seemed well pleased with the cerveza business, as the streets nearby seemed deserted. The Chinese seemed to have forsaken the land of Granada nail bars, in favour of cornering mini-market world. The balcony afforded a fine of view of the city and the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains. The inactivity in the
train station below, reinforced that we'd made the right choice with further coach tickets for the onward journey to Cordoba.
Whilst reading a bit about Granada for the trip, I was reading the twin towns - Aix en Provence, Marakesh etc - which one could see the possible common links. However, it was a little concerning to see amongst the list a certain Sneinton. Granada has high ground on which you find the Alahambra. Sneinton also has high ground, on which there is a somewhat less impressive windmill. We did not see any other similarities.
We had pre-booked our Alhambra tickets a number of months ago. The demand is high, so we figured it could be a good idea to go and print them off to save delays the following day. We paused first for a cana. It was a warm afternoon again, which made it hard work walking up the hill to the main ticket office. A large queue had formed for collections, although that transpired to be for concessionary tickets and the like. We skirted around that and found the process at the ticket machines somewhat less hassle. Five minutes later, we were on the way
back down the hill. It was only later that we discovered that there is an official Alhambra shop in the square in the city centre, where we could have saved ourselves the hassle. We set of for a walk round the old districts of Albazin and Sacremonte. The white washed buildings glistened in the afternoon sun.
We spent the rest of the afternoon on our balcony. Miranda finished her book and I studied the new world of Gareth Bale in the sports newspaper. It is easy to believe from our UK base that the world revolves around Barcelona, but even here in the backwaters many miles from the capital the Madrid based papers make sure that Real Madrid and more specifically Wales' finest is front page headlines. It took Spain's qualification for the World Cup to knock him off the front page on the Wednesday, but in between times it was a detailed analysis of his injury, whether Real had been complete mugs to pay 100m Euros and double page spreads of the most injury prone recent big buys .........the memories of Jonathan Woodgate were still clearly fresh in the mind.
We were up bright and early in
the morning for our sumptuous buffet breakfast, before intercepting a 31 bus on the Calle Gran Via. The easy way to get up the hill. It got stuck behind the school run, but it saved our legs. At 8.30 am, the Alhambra was fairly quiet and all the more impressive for it. The crowds build up as the tour buses unload later in the day, but to be fair there seemed enough space for all the ticket holders. The timed aspect of the visit was entry to the Nasrid Palace. There is a slight overdose of mosaics throughout the day, but you can be nothing but impressed at the overall place. We made our way from the main palaces to the Generalife. A must see on the European circuit (with surprising few English voices). We spent the majority of the day in the Alhambra, before retreating back to our balcony via stocking up from our new found Chinese friend.
As with Malaga, the nightlife gets going quite late and the bars off Gran Via were packed with students. There was impromptu flamenco dancing to amuse the tourists as an extra income generator. We dined in the more commercial area
near the Cathedral on a Menu del Dia. It is apparently a throw back from Franco that restaurants have to technically serve a hearty meal at a fixed advertised price - so we took advantage. We were surprised by the quality and choice for the comparatively low price of 9.50 Euros.
It was a more relaxed start to the next day and we set off before it got too hot in the direction of a viewpoint, that we could see from the Alhambra. I figured out that the panoramic photos must be taken from there. We found eventually, although the said spot was actually further up the hill near beyond the old city walls. The bus tours unloaded at the first point, before leading their human cargo to the point where the buses could not reach. We followed. We took a cafe con leche break - surprisingly good value, considering the tourist trap venue - before climbing higher. Alas, the sun was never going to be a good angle for photography. If you are looking for a short cut to the said point, I recommend taking the Service 7 bus to it's terminus and you'll only have a 5
minute walk.
We spend the afternoon around the shops, without ever really intending to purchase. The days of Spain being a cheap destination for such as Lacoste and Camper shoes are behind us. We were surprised to see even Clarks shoes in the 120 Euros bracket.
As a break from our Menu del Dia habit, we dined on Argentine parilla. A tasty snack of empanadas accompanied the wine and the ensuing meat and potatoes was as good as it gets. The proprietor without warning sped from behind his counter to digitally record our enjoyment of his food. He later proudly produced a photo he printed off his computer to remind us of our meal.
We left the following morning for Cordoba on our ALSA bus - not just any old ALSA mind - a supra economy luxury model.
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