Spanish Holiday - Granada and the Sierra Nevada

Sat 04 May to Mon 06 May 19

On Saturday afternoon we drove to Granada.  We took the direct route, a single carriageway road across the region, passing some interesting sites as we went.

We couldn't resist this one so pulled over in Alcaudete.

A most interesting church - but shut as we appeared to be out of season.

In fact we seemed to be out of season for the whole of Alcaudete with no shops open, certainly not anywhere we could stop for lunch.  No worries, we drove on to Granada, entering the huge city and weaving our way up to our accommodation on the western side up in the hills.  Nice view from the balcony!

We wandered down into Granada to see what we could find.

It's a far larger city than Cordoba: more offices, traffic-laden roads, the usual shopping offerings, fancy restaurants etc.  The older buildings are still there to discover but more dispersed amongst the commercial centre.

There is a large souk in the centre.

And we found a cathedral.

Sunday saw the focus of our visit to Granada, a tour of Alhambra.  

JC has been wanting to visit this complex for years.  The site consists of a multitude of buildings, a garrison, palaces, gardens, mosques, pools and waterways.  There is beautiful Arabic tiling and amazing architecture - although somewhat neglected over the centuries and some of the restoration has been done in an enthusiastic but sloppy manner.

It's hard to visit as the tickets sell out super quickly and you therefore have to pay for a tour.  There is timed entry to one of the palaces.  It is a fascinating place but our guide rushed us around and wasn't oozing much information.  One of his memorable quotes was "water comes from the Nevada.  It flows downhill".  Anyway, at least we got in there but, if I go again, I'd ensure I had a decent guide or, better still, total free rein to visit this at my own pace. 

After this we had a Ruth treat and went to an Andalusian Arab bath.  It was a relaxing and pleasant break from the hustle of the tourist sites and we blobbed around for an hour or so.

We drifted around the back streets of Granada, climbing up a series of steps to suddenly find ourselves with this awesome view of the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada.

On Monday, on our way back to Malaga, we drove into the foothills of the Nevada and hiked the Río Monachil.  If you like rushing water, rope bridges, clinging to the side of a gorge, waterfalls and scrambling, this is your type of walk.  It was an eclectic mix of all of the above walking up the gorge.

The woman with the odd hat is off...

Bouncy!

Yup, it was a hands and knees operation on occasions.

To be honest the return leg was a bit dull, just down a road, but it was more than compensated for by the fun we had getting up there.

Then it was a drive across Andalusia to Malaga.  We stopped off at a random bar and for €3 were served a tapa and a drink.  When we ordered more drinks more tapas came out which we weren't expecting.  This wouldn't have been too inconvenient except most of the tapas in Spain consist of meat and even JC couldn't munch them all.  

Then it was a late flight back to Exeter and up and out for work the next day.  Ah well.

If you want to see some better photos, and a bit more history of the places, JC's blog is here.