We started the day with another flying visit to the Mezquita. A little more crowded on a Saturday, but still amazing. I think I have a photo that might get closer to my ideal than before, but.........
Got to our car, only to discover that our luggage would not fit in the back of the micro Echo we had hired. OK,OK......I finally succumbed to a car company upsell. Not huge but galling. The upside is that it had a GPS so we did not have to rely on Google.
Got out and managed to see Cordoba from many new and interesting angles. Firstly I lost faith, temporarily, in the GPS when it told me to turn left over a pedestrian mall, then we had a call for a left turn very late when I was in the right lane on a busy section, then it told me to take a slight left.....there were two.....yep wrong one.......so after we finally got on the right road and headed to Granada, Marjan yells out Cordoba this way and I obeyed........of course Cordoba was that way....we had been there......so back over the river for another new view.......All good fun.
We did make it to Zuhero for lunch, we are tourists that lunch. The drive through the country was interesting as it was so different to Iceland. Dusty olive groves everywhere. Zuhero is a lovely little village, perched on a hillside with a 10th century Arab castle on the top. We got lost walking from the public parking at the bottom of the hill, and ended up walking up more hill than was strictly necessary.....calves of steel! The littl plaza was perched next to castle and was serving food, soooo.......deep fried pork filled with jamon is hard to resist. These little towns will feature on the rest of our trip.
But first to the big smoke, Granada, in the shadows of the snowy range, La Sierra Nevada, it houses the Alhambra, which we have not yet seen.
The GPS was doing a sterling job, until we got within about 800 metres of our hotel. I thought it would be lovely to book accomodation inside the Alhambra historic grounds........nice idea, but getting in proved interesting. The GPS told me to take a left into some gardens, I refused. We went around again and tried a different approach. I was on the other side of the hill but more confused.
Finally I bit down and asked for advice from another hotel. He DID admit that the sign for our hotel WAS very small, and faced the wrong way for most people, and it did involve us doing a U turn into a manned checkpoint....so really it was understandable, but we were a little frustrated, by the time we got to the hotel.
The reception folk were lovely and sat us down with a cool drink whilst they did the paperwork and all was going swimmingly....until I discovered I could not locate my glasses, I had my sunglasses but it was hard to see indoors. We searched high and low and wondered how we could have lost them. On a fourth search of the car, we finally found them slid under the centre console....more hot frustrated Melbournian.
To avoid more frustration, rather than driving the car back out of the Alhambra to find a car park, I paid as few extra sheckles for valet parking. Yep we were happy about that part of the day.
After checking in I thought I would ask about good times to visit the Alhambra Palaces. The hotel person looked at me with a worried look. Apparently booking in advance is almost a must. We tried booking by Internet, they did not accept overseas cards, we tried by phone, no luck, we rushed off to the ticket office, no they only sell on the day.....and you had better be queued by seven! We tried a tourist shop touting tickets....they had primo ones for next week!
Defeated we wandered down into town and did our normal aimless wandering around the old quarter, with views up to the Alhambra. It seemed to be wedding day, we saw at least three separate ones going on this afternoon. The last at the cathedral with the reception at the Alhambra. Nice town.......oh yeah, we found some time for some tapas.
Not being able to face the climb back up the hill, we caught the bus. Marjan went to the room to rest her aching feet, I wandered around the lovely grounds for a while......trying to mooch a free drink at the wedding reception.....to no avail....best I got was a blown bubble bursting on my cheek. The place seems to be full of cats when the people start to leave.
When I got back, I started my routine.....recharge batteries, back-up photos, write blog.......the bag with the cables, rechargers, power adapters et al was packed with the winter suitcase....the winter suitcase is in the car.....the car has been valet parked......... god knows where.......hence no photos, no recharge of camera batteries, no recharge of PC or phone ....... AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!
Just another day on the road. Bye from a happy but tired pair!
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