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Spain - Day 3 - Trip to Granada and La Alhambra
Monday 16th February 2009
We awoke nice and early with our day planned. We would make the 140km trip inland to Granada, to visit the historic Alhambra and Generalife. We packed up our bags and said goodbye to the Casa Babylon Hostal, the non English speaking host, his gigantic dog, and the overwhelming smell of incense. We trekked down to the car park, paid the 40 Euro fee and departed the party city of Malaga. We had some clue as to which direction to head, so we found a freeway and drove. We were both hungry for some breakfast, and spotted a highway café. As we walked in, the smell kind of hit you in the face. There was yukky pig legs hanging from everywhere inside. We took a seat at the bar, and again tried to decipher the menu. Ham and Cheese sandwiches was what was delivered to us (kinda off putting when you're staring straight at a pigs leg). It's always such a surprise when they bring the food out.
Back onto the freeway for a few minutes, where we spotted a petrol station. In the hope of trying to find as street directory, I ventured inside. The guy spoke no English, and as my Spanish only consists Hello, Thanks and Meat, the ensuing conversation was a good one. I found a book wrapped in plastic, near the local maps, and took a guess that it was a street directory for Spain. The guy was trying to sell me one for 22 Euro, and I couldn't spot the difference between the one I had for 16 Euro. The language barrier sure was proving to be a problem. Eventually he pointed to the 2009 on the front of the more expensive one. I was happy to save 5 Euro by purchasing a one year out of date directory. The smile on Dan's face when I emerged from the service station with a book, was huge. We opened it up and it contained all sorts of tourist information (we think!) but there was this marvellous book of maps! Hopefully we would not drive around a town for hours in the future.
The drive to Granada was really easy, free way the whole way to the hotel. Dan did a great job driving, but only because I was an excellent navigator!! Dan did make a confession to me as we passed a soccer ground. "I only know 3 Spanish Football teams - Real Madrid, Barcelona, and AC Milan". Me: "Uhm Dan, Milan is in Italy"!! And I thought I had poor geographical skills. We dumped the bags, and boarded the bus up to the Alhambra y Generalife. After prebooking tickets online last week, all we had to do was collect them and walk through the gate, seems simple enough. We stood in the queue for prebooked tickets (Because it made sense) and this guy kept telling us - by pointing - "over there". We went 'over there' where the queue for entry was. Everyone in the queue had tickets, we still hadn't picked them up. A few loops around the entrance area, and we discovered we had to go over to a corner and pick up the tickets from a machine. No signs, nothing. Once inside, we followed the beautiful leafy, garden path. We had no maps of the attraction, no guides, we were going it alone (again!). We followed the signs up to the generalife (still, really don't know what that was all about), and had a look through the beautiful gardens. These people certainly know how to use hedge trimmers. There was a pretty amphitheatre, and amazing hedge gardens with heaps of water features. It would be like porn to Don Bourke and Jamie Durie. We weren't allowed to enter the Palace of Nazzrid until 4.30, so we had 2 hours to kill looking at all the other stuff in there. We walked into Carlos' palace - which from the outside is square, but when you enter, has a massive circular courtyard with a second level balcony. You couldn't get into any of the rooms. We also had a look at the Royal baths and the few souvenir shops before going into the Alcazabar. This one was no where near as impressive as the one we had seen in Malaga, but still really cool. It is really well preserved, we climbed the big lookout tower, where you can see over all of Granada. Back down and we waited near the entry of the Palace. There was dozens of "Castle Cat's" - as I named them. They just wander around through all the people, looking for food. The Nazzarid palace was built by Mohammed, during Islamic rule of Spain in the 1100's (maybe!?!?). Again, beautifully decorated rooms, which lead into big courtyards with georgeous pools and water features. Orange trees and mosaic tiling galore. The walls and ceilings all had awesome decorations. Cute little balconies with views of Granada, massive wooden doors were scattered throughout the place. After spending our allotted half an hour inside, we made our way out to more perfectly trimmed hedges, and pools (This one had the largest goldfish I've ever seen).
We walked down the big hill into the centre of Granada and saw the big old Cathedral. As we were walking down to it, this strange lady was trying to give Dan a sprig of plant. She was becoming rather insistent with polite Dan, who couldn't seem to get away from here. I had remembered what our 'Saviour Woman' in Malaga had told us "Stay away from gypsy ladies trying to give you flowers", Dan must've forgot. He eventually pried his way free of these crazy women, and we continued on our way. We walked past the Cathedral and through the city streets for an hour or so. We forgot to arrange to purchase power adapted for my laptop, or Dan's mobile, so we were looking to get one. Quick spot in a Camera shop, found an adapter that would convert any type of plug, into any type of socket. Score! Had a lovely dinner in the main square. Dan tried a Spanish Omelette, while I had some eggy, pizza thing. Yum. It had gotten quite chilly by this stage, and the short sleeves and ¾ pants I was wearing, no longer seemed like a good idea. We jumped on a bus back to the hotel, for another good nights rest. One thing that does seem to be the norm here is the pillows they use on double beds. Instead of having 2 normal pillows, they have one long pillow that runs the width of the bed. Sounds good in theory, but Dan and I contradict with our uses on pillows. He likes to flip and turn it, I like to cuddle around my pillow - this just wasn't easy only having one!!
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