We're in the Wrong Church

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We wander into a very attractive square with gardens surrounding a fountain. Issy says she wants to take a picture of the fountain, but it isn't working. As she says this it comes on. We wonder who's listening to our conversations. We decide that we need to be very careful about what we say from now on.

The owner of the B&B told us when we arrived that we should visit the Monastery of San Jeronimo. We had read that this has a small church attached to it and that you have to pay to enter. The church's doors are closed, but a man waves for us to open one of them and go in. He doesn't ask us for any money. There's a mass in progress so we sit quietly in the back row. The church is very impressive. We wait for the mass to finish, and then leave. We wander around aimlessly before coming across a gate with a sign on it telling us that this is in fact the entrance to the Monastery. It seems that the church we were in a few minutes ago was just a random church. I think that my map reading skills might need some improvement.

The Monastery of San Jeronimo is not just a church but a full blown monastery. We read that its construction started in 1504, and it includes a sealed off section in which the nuns still live. I thought that nuns lived in convents, but I'm not sure that I'm an expert on Catholic nomenclature. The part that we can access consists of a large courtyard full of orange trees, with cloisters around the outside. Most of the rooms are quite austere and sparsely decorated, and we're a bit off the beaten track so there are very few people around. I walk into one of the rooms. It's very quiet, and I'm the only person here. Suddenly there's a loud buzzing noise and all the lights come on. I jump, and it takes me a few minutes to regain my senses. Now I'm sure that someone must not only be listening to our conversations, but watching us as well. I wonder what we need to do to get away. We go into the church, thinking that maybe they won't be so brazen as to follow us onto sacred ground. The church is spectacularly decorated, mostly in gold, and is apparently what the Monastery is most famous for.

We wander back towards the middle of Granada. Issy says she likes aimless wandering. There seem to be quite a few beggars around and they operate using a range of different methods. We pass a respectable looking middle aged man in a very quiet street, standing next to a cardboard box. There are no other people in the street at all, and we both wonder what he's doing. After we pass him he starts banging the cardboard box with his hands, and singing. Issy says she heard some singing earlier and thought that it was coming from a mosque, but we now realise that it was this man. I think he's going to need to find somewhere with a few more people if he wants to make money doing this, and starting his banging before his audience gets past him might also be a good idea. We then pass a slightly older and similarly respectably dressed man in another street. He walks along with one of his hands permanently outstretched with its palm facing upwards and stops in front of each person he passes. He doesn't say anything, but it's clear that he wants money. I think he might have a bit more luck than the man with the cardboard box, if only because he's at least walking along streets that have people in them.

We have a short siesta and then head off towards the Museum of the Caves of Sacromonte. It's now very hot again, and the entrance to the Museum is a long way up a steep hill. Sacromonte is an area right next to Albaicin, but it's outside the original city walls, and it seems that the people who lived there originally were either gypsies or other outcasts who weren't allowed to live inside the walls. They had very little money so they lived in caves which they dug into the hillside. The Museum consists of a series of these cave houses, and displays of what might have been in them when they were in use. It's very cool inside the caves. I think that most of the people who lived here must have been quite short. I can't stand up in any of the caves without bumping my head. I stop to pat a small cat and it then starts following me into all the caves. Issy thinks that this is very cute, and she tells it that she wants to take it home. I'm not used to animals following me around. Our dog Coco only follows Issy around, and our cats are too aloof to follow anyone around.

It's still very hot as we leave the museum. We get to a fork in an alleyway where we can go either uphill or downhill. I tell Issy that it's no fun going downhill so we must go up. I tell her that we have nothing to lose. She says that she agrees, if I discount the fact that she might die walking uphill in the heat. We continue uphill along a path next to a section of the old town wall and find ourselves in a more modern residential neighbourhood. I'm not too sure exactly where we are. Issy has a sore foot and doesn't look overly happy. She says that we need to take most direct way back to the B&B. I now have no idea where we are. She starts calling me "David Sheehan", which is never a good sign. We wander around aimlessly. I don't think she likes aimless wandering now quite as much as she said she did this morning. Just when all seems lost we spy the son of the owner of the B&B walking along in the street in front of us. We say "hola" to him but he doesn't recognise us. We decide to follow him anyway, and just hope that he's heading home. We keep a respectable distance - getting arrested for stalking wouldn't seem to be an overly ideal way to end the day.

We head out for dinner and order tapas to share plus two main courses. It all comes out together. The tapas alone would be enough to feed a small African nation. We eat only a small fraction of what we ordered and are now embarrassed by how much we haven't eaten. Issy starts moving leftover food from one plate to another, as she says this will make it look less like we've hardly eaten anything. I'm not sure the waiter really cares. He grabs our mountain of leftovers and dumps it in a large receptacle right next to our table, which it seems, unbeknownst to us, is a well disguised rubbish bin. I'm glad we didn't know what it was while we were still eating or the mountain of leftovers might have been even higher.

We're very tired. We try to doze off, but it's very noisy in our room. We can't quite work out where the noise is coming from, but it gets worse, and sleep is now impossible. It's 1am and we're not happy. We eventually conclude that the noise seems to be coming from the roof terrace above our room. I put on a dressing gown and a pair of glasses and storm off in search of the noise makers. Issy calls after me to be nice, and I stomp up the stairs where I'm confronted by a large group of Russians in full party mode. I must be too angry to be rational - there's ten of them and one of me, and they're all very big. I take a deep breath ask them very politely if they'd mind keeping the racket down. They apologise. I hope we don't run into them at breakfast......

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