Continuing the age-old tradition of garnering
travel tips from others met abroad, we decided to visit Granada after talking to the woman
from Florida we met on the ferry to Algeceiras.
It more than made up for our misadventures
finding the hostel with her. We loved Granada. The air was fresh, there were
mountains nearby, there was a huge hill leading into a neat park and castle, and also
(Dave's favorite part) a funky-yet-cheap cybercafe.
We had business to take care of in this town: a
horse statue and a couple of jellabas to ship home, and lots of laundry to do. We went off
in search of the one "self-serve" laundromat and stumbled upon a
university-sponsored cybercafe. For $3 an hour we could sit with students, don personal
headphones, and select from over 10 CD's to listen to during our tenure there.
As for the laundry, there ended up being a
laundromat in our hostal-- inside what looked like a closet nextdoor to our room. Of
course we learned this after we forked out $7 for detergent (it was included).
People often ask us what we do on an average
day during our trip. Well, our attempt to send a package home took a better part of one
of our days in Granada. It's the little things that always take the longest. First: the
box. We were fortunate that after scouring several recycle bin areas with no luck we
happened upon a box at the tourist information office that was about the right size.
We had brought clear tape with us, so that wasn't a problem. Paper, pens, check; we
had them. We packed it all up, labeled it, and walked to the post office.
The problem? We didn't have an address in
Granada to put as our "return" address. As we don't know Spanish and nobody at
the post office spoke much English, this fact in itself took a lot of pointing and miming
to figure out. First they wouldn't let us put our hotel, then one woman said we could,
then another woman said we could put someone's address in the US instead, so we did that,
then a man (who was behind the counter by then) said the address had to be in Granada, but
it couldn't be our hotel. We went through about 10 of their 3-part forms before one was
accepted, and as many handmade labels too. But we lightened our load a little and got
something checked off our list by the end of the afternoon.
The highlight of Granada for us was the
Alahambra. It was simply incredible and we could have stayed a lot longer than the full
day we had. The Alhambra consists of three areas: Generalife, which is the gardens,
Palacios Nazaries, the palace, and Alcazaba towers and fortress.
We had to enter on a "scheduled" a
time to visit the palace, so while we waited we trekked through the gardens and the
towers. The landscape of the gardens was very inventive...odd shapes and bushes trimmed
into unusual formations. Mini mazes and secret coves. And wicked views overlooking Granada
and of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The three areas together formed what would have
been a medieval hilltop amusement park, a playground for royalty. The palace gardens even
had been originally built with a fountain-topped swimming pool.
After a few days savoring the mountains and
catching up on email we decided it was time to head north, so we caught a bus and headed
for Madrid.
