Heading to the Alhambra

Before we leave Ronda I'll tell you about one more experience from there. The hotel was so nice and the girls so tired and coughing so much they let us stay past the normal checkout since our train didn't leave until 5:17pm. We made arrangements, well the hotel made them, to have our taxi take us on a quick tour down the hill to take some pictures looking back up at the town and bridge, then drop us off at the station. We ended up having a couple of hours at the station before the train and as we pulled in to the parking lot we could see storm clouds heading our way. And then it rained in Spain while we were waiting for the train ! I mean it poured including hail!

But what did we care. That doesn't stop a train. Well our train took us about a third the way to Granada and then we boarded a bus because they're putting in a new high speed line and the regular line was being moved.

OK, just a bus ride. Well, we caught up with the storm and between the wind, thunder, lightning and subsequent flash flood which dumped mud and rocks onto the freeway, it was an interesting ride. AND we get to repeat that Sunday on our way to Madrid. Hopefully without the storm.

In Granada we took a taxi to our hotel as it was on the other side of town, across from the Alhambra. We got in about 9pm, dropped our stuff off and had dinner in their restaurant. Nice meal, at least it was handy. Our guided t tour of the Alhambra was scheduled for 8am the next day. This hotel is very pretty, our room was nice and big and the bathroom was very clean. AND it had an elevator.

I think we have added a few more "New Rules", as Bill Maher would say. At least two nights, elevator, in a hotel. And the train system here is not like it used to be. Very few spur of the moment train rides. Most trains need reservations, which means it's more like airlines than the hop on, hop off system it used to be. Trains are still the way to go, just requires more planning and less spontaneity.

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Sept. 26

It's 8am and we're in the lobby waiting for our tour guide to show up, which she does about 8:25. Great, just the three of us. We walk across the street to join the other 22 people in our group, which is OK because some of these groups are 40 or 50 strong. Our real guide is Juan who hands us a radio receiver and headphones. The setup works great and we spend the next two hours walking the Alhambra palace and gardens, the last of the Moorish castles. Originally a fortress built in 889 and then largely ignored until its ruins were renovated and rebuilt in the mid-11th century by the Moorish emir, the Emirate of Granada, who built its current palace and walls. It was converted into a royal palace in 1333.

Belinda calls it the gem of Spain. I won't boar you with details. You can read all you want on the internet. After our tour we headed downtown on what they call a bus, I call it a big, bouncy, uncomfortable van. Kind of like the HUT shuttle to the Portland airport. Really, can no one else come up with better transport from the capitol of Oregon? HUT really is a piece of shit. The worst transport during our entire trip! I digress. We walked around a couple of squares, watched a flamenco dance group in one of them (excellente)

and then had grilled calamari including the black ink that squirts out of them. Plus Seafood Paella, kind of a rice dish. Both were pretty good. Girls enjoyed their sangria. We then decided to head to the Arabic section, the Albicin and Sacramonte, on one of those comfy, better than the HUT though, vans. We looped around the city and got back to our hotel about 5pm and slept for two hours.

Now this hotel, while nice and clean, has it's downside. Last night we wanted to check email after we all got into our beds and it didn't work. I called the front desk and the lady said "Sometimes it doesn't work in de room but come down to de lobby and use it here". Sorry I can't capture the darling accent. Belinda says we should go down in our pj's. I said fuggetaboutit. The tv also had it's problems so we just went to sleep. The hotel also needs some sound proofing but we slept OK.

So tonight we are sitting in the hotel lobby using the internet, eating pizza Belinda bought next door.  Tomorrow off on a bus and train ride to Madrid, our next to the last city.