We overslept this morning. The people in the room above were scraping chairs and having showers at 1am. Honestly, this hotel appears to have zero sound proofing! Today we are walking back down to the city to take advantage of all the free sightseeing that the lady in one of the monuments told me about yesterday! What skin flints we are…but why pay if you don’t have to? We have started our day at El Banuelo, a Roman style bath house. We enter a house with a courtyard, then through to the three bathrooms behind. First the cold room, followed by the warm. All have moorish skylights representing the moon and stars. A third room, which we can only see from behind a barred gate, has a pretty blue and white tiled floor. The baths are ... read more

This morning we are up with the lark. We have tickets to see the Alhambra but it’s possible there will be long queues to enter. Our time slot for the Nazarene Palace is 9.30am and we have been warned not to be late! I am an avid reader of Philippa Gregory’s historical novels and the Alhambra has been on my wish list ever since I read ‘The Constant Princess’, which follows the life of Katherine of Aragon. Katherine, who grew up in the Alhambra, is sent to England to marry Arthur…and subsequently Henry VIII after Arthur’s death. After the sunshine of Spain, Katherine hates both the English climate and the heavy stewed food. She longs to eat salad again. There are vivid descriptions of her former life here. It’s still cool, having only just got light, ... read more

A leisurely start to the day. We walk up to the local cafe to get breakfast - they are offering bacon and eggs, lovely. The bacon has a very strong flavour. We think it might be the speciality bacon cured up here because of the mountain climate. Now to the electronic dashboard. I manage to find my way into settings and hey presto, I can change the language to English - Ian is much happier and as impressed as I could ever expect him to be. We set off for our tour of Sierra Nevada. It’s a mountainous region with white painted buildings dotted throughout. There are fabulous views and terrifying hairpin bend roads. A massive thud on the car indicates a large pine cone falling from above. I’ve also noticed something that looks like rain ... read more

This morning we had planned to go out early because I want to be back in time to see the Queens funeral. The black out curtains put paid to this as we don’t wake up till 8am (that would be 7am back in the UK). I can’t believe it’s so late, Ian says I fell asleep around 6pm last night - I must have been exhausted. We decide to skip breakfast and go straight to the cathedral. The tourist office assured us it would open at 9am today although our guide book said 10. Out of date guidebook? It’s a half hour walk to the historic centre so we won’t be there at opening time…but near enough. We arrive at the cathedral. It doesn’t open till 10! We walk around the outside taking photos. It’s much ... read more

So here we are, off to the airport again. To be honest it doesn’t feel long since our last trip and I’m almost wishing I hadn’t booked this trip. But book it I did and everything has been paid for so here we are. I suppose we were lucky that the trains were running as there was due to be a strike today. Our train is on time and it chugs us in to Redhill, one change and we are at Gatwick. It’s all pretty smooth. We are early but check in is open. For once we don’t break the machines doing the self check in of our suitcase…yes just the one, we’re travelling light. Security is the usual nightmare. The lady in charge of the queue is funny…she’s calling out all the things we have ... read more