Blogs from Granada, Andalusia, Spain, Europe - page 5

We’re on the bus after a marathon of a walk to get to Granada train station (lots of construction going on so we had to walk miles out of the way and around to get to the train station). So be because of that we are busing it to Antequerra to hop on a AVE train to Cordoba. Let’s recap the last 3 days in Granada. Ah, Granada. The jewel in the crown that is Andalucía or Al-Andalus. We arrived to a really nice new hotel and immediately went to get our Granada card from the tourist office. The Alhambra, palace of the Moors, is notoriously known for selling out well in advance (only 6600 tickets a day) and as we knew from our last trip, the only way to avoid lining up at 6am to ... read more

We get up early for our tour of the Alhambra. Spain really does seem to be in the wrong time zone. It‘s only barely light when we wake up at 7am, and it’s still been broad daylight at 10pm every night. We walk down to Plaza Nueva and look for building number 14, which is the meeting place for the tour. Not many of the buildings seem to have numbers on them, and we're not sure what numbering system is used for squares. I tell Issy that the usual system used in streets of having odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other side might be a bit problematic for squares, because what would they do about the numbers on the other two sides. She gives me the look. We spot an equally ... read more

I think Issy's been reading the blog. The lights in the shower go on and off again for several minutes like strobe lights in a disco. I tell her that this is not funny, but I think she's enjoying herself way too much to stop. We pack. I sort my clothes into two piles according to whether they're dirty or clean, and see that my dirty clothes now outnumber my clean clothes by four to one. Issy sees what I'm doing. She says that swimming in clothes doesn't make them clean, so I redo my piles. The dirty clothes now outnumber the clean clothes by eight to one. We catch a taxi to the station, and board a train which takes us through seemingly endless fields of olive trees. We're supposed to change trains at somewhere ... read more

This is our last stop in Spain...after Granada, it's driving up directly to Madrid in order to take our plane to the North. This is it, 1800km in a single week....temperatures around 35 degrees, not a single drop of rain...and obviously, when not one the road, a lot of cuddles! For our last stop, we give you Granada. I also came here as a teenager...and trust me, the Alhambra was my first wonder of the world to visit! This time, I've booked the night visit. They only sell 400 of those tickets per night...so it's a good idea to book way ahead. It doesn't even cost much more. The idea is to visit the palace between 10pm and midnight, and to come the next morning to visit the gardens of the Generalife and everything else there ... read more

Granada is the home to the most visited attraction in Spain, the Alhambra. Basically it is a site that had several small military fortifications until the 12th century when it became a very ornate Moorish palace. 100 years or so after the palace was built, the Moorish lost their 7 century rule over the region. Then step in King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (think Columbus) and the christianification began. Fast forward to present time when they have about 7000 tour tickets available per day, 6800 of which are typically spoken for 3 months in advance. As of last night, we didn't have tickets. At the advice of several internet blogs, we woke up at 5:30 and got in line by 5:45 to try our hand at winning 2 of the few remaining tickets. All of that ... read more