Granada…..

The Saturday night saw Jasbir and I investigating our options of what to do on Sunday… With a sense of adventure about us we fancied trying to get away from the Costa and see something different in Spain.. We consulted many timetables (about a trees worth of printing from the internet later) we decided that we would head to Granada for the day…..!! If you look on the map it doesn’t look that far from where we are – however to get there by public transport is a bit of a mission….!

The Journey….
It was an early start with the alarm going off at 0645..! We had been told that if you are going to Granada you have to go to La Alhambra so we tried to book tickets on the internet before we left – but to no avail – this left us for about 20 mins trying to decide (whilst fiddling with a very temperamental internet connection) whether we should go or not…. In the end basically we decided we would go anyway and just play it by ear…!

The journey begins with a 15 min walk to the train station in Benalmadena to Malaga… this goes well we are armed with so many maps and timetables cannot even begin to explain! We then have to find our way from train to bus station, which turned out to be very easy and them very close to one another. We bought our tickets without difficulty and waited for our bus at the station buying some bits to eat to keep us going. After leaving Benalmadena at 0800 we arrive in Granada about 11:15.

The journey was very beautiful as the bus took us all through the mountains and olive groves it was a very scenic journey and then as we approached Granada we were able to see the Sierra Nevada with snow capped mountains.

On arrival, we didn’t really have a clear plan other than it would be good to get to see La Alhambra… Once inside the bus station at Granada we spotted a counter for hostels that were offering free maps… In my best Spanish I asked for a map only to be greeted with an English response and followed a conversation with a very helpful English guy telling us what we should look out for in Granada, the places to see and reassuring us that we would be able to get tickets for La Alhambra if we went up there and told us how… Another 2 buses…!

2 buses later we arrive and find our way to the ticket office, where we queue and are able to get tickets for entrance at 2pm (by now it is nearing 12:30).

La Alhambra is described as
“the greatest surviving expression of Moorish culture in Spain and is one of the worlds most spectacular heritage sites” It is situated on the top of Granada’s Sabika Hill. It is a walled complex that is about 700m long and 200m wide. There are four distinct areas inside La Alhambra beginning with the Alcabaza which is the original building here built in the 11th century by the Emirs of Cordoba. The other Islamic buildings of the Casa Real, Royal Palace of the Sultans and Palacio of Generalife were built in the 13th and 14th Centuries by the Nasrites.

We try to find our way in – not as easy as it sounds and ended up following the crowd to find our way into the site. On entry it is an awesome sight, and initially it was a bit overwhelming by its sheer size. It took a while for the realisation to hit home that we had made it here after what had felt like a bit of a mission..! We got our bearings again something that took a bit of time, then went to hire a commentary in English. Our tickets for entry into certain parts were timed so we tried to plan our attack to see it all. In some books it says it can take a day to see it and realistically we had about 5 hours…!

I will not do justice to it to try and describe the place the interior of the royal palaces are truly amazing with lots of stucco work and great detail preserved for generations to come to enjoy. Much to my frustration my camera battery ran out inside the palace (and I wasn’t carrying a spare!) and Jasbirs memory was low on her camera but between us we managed to get some shots of the inside – although the interior ones posted here are courtesy of Jasbir..!

At about 5 we had to head back to the bus station. We boarded the shuttle bus from town to La Alhambra and I explained to the bus driver we needed to get back to the station… He told us we needed to get to town on his bus then catch the no 33…! So, off we went on the bus, about 10 mins later he is shouting out about the no 33 and we leapt up only to realise he had stopped the driver of the no 33 for us in the middle of the road..! We hopped off one bus and onto the other, all very kind as we were aiming for the 18:00 bus back to Malaga in order for me to make all of my connections back to Puerto Banus (a tricky mission which had been well planned for the relevant connections).

Safely back at the bus station we queued to get onto our bus to Malaga… however when I handed the tickets to the bus driver he spoke lots of Spanish which I didn’t understand he told us to go up to information…..(there is now about 10 mins til the bus departs). Off we go to information to find that the man doesn’t speak English so as usual I have to use my Spanish we are told that the ticket is open and we need to book onto a bus at a set time… something we hadn’t realised..!! So I ask for the 1800 bus but I am told there is no space left on either bus…! Therefore we end up booking the 19:00 bus and have an hours wait and I have to re-plan my mission back to Puerto Banus, all being well I should be able to get the last bus back!)… Finally we get on the bus a bit tired and weary, for the journey back to Malaga. Back through the mountains with what should have been a peaceful journey but there was a passenger near us who was organising his social life throughout the entire journey speaking very loudly…. There was a fabulous red sunset as we came back through the mountains after what had been a superb day at La Alhambra.

I made it back to Puerto Banus getting back to Sanyres just after midnight. It was well worth the trip and many hours on the buses and would love to go back and see some of Granada as we didn’t really have time for this.

I have tons of pictures of this and apologise but need to sort them out so will post pics later... !!