Friday 11.12.2010


The Home Stretch

Everything we do now leads us back to Madrid and our flight home in 11 days. John goes up to the terrace to check on our laundry and finds it neatly stacked and folded in a little room off to the side. It makes for easy packing this morning as we just put piles directly into the suitcases. We ordered breakfast last night for 9:30 this morning and Ian is busy with sausages and coffee when we return to the rooftop terrace. It is cool but the sun feels good and we have mountain views in one direction and the Mediterranean in the other. All of the roofs here as well as other places we have stayed have hot water tanks and solar panels installed to take advantage of all the sunny days. Probably not a reasonable option for northern Minnesota.


After breakfast we take another walk around town as Mary continues the great postcard shopping tour of Europe, followed by the continuation of the post office stand-in-line-for-one stamp tour. Ian is making beds when we get back to settle up our bill. Jane is off running around today so he says he is adding brownie points to his account. We were a bit worried about this place as it is a fraction of the price of other places we have stayed (35-euros/night) but the room was fine, the location ideal and our hosts couldn’t have been more accommodating so Cheers! to Hostal Miguel.


This is the last of our short-drive days leaving the coast right around noon and due to arrive at our next stop, Granada, in less than two hours. We are taken aback as we start to climb north to see snow on the mountaintops ahead of us and wonder what we’re getting into. There is snow predicted for home tomorrow so we thought we were finally going to be on the plus side of that ledger. We fire Monique when we get to the city as directed by our host for tonight, and follow his directions around the ring road to the Alhambra exit. We then squeeze down a dead end street, park illegally in front of a restaurant hanging over a hillside and walk down the last 100 yards to our lodging.

When we ring the bell, Manuel hustles down to meet us, gets our car keys, turns us over to Catarina for check in and disappears. A little bit later we see our car inching through a turn into a little garage three stories below us. When we climb down to get our luggage the driver is still only halfway in and takes another five minutes to make it all the way. We suspect that is why Manuel didn’t want us to park ourselves. A different person was parking the car (designated parker?) so he, we and soon Catarina and another helper all get our luggage up to the room and we’re settled in for three days.

We are staying in Granada in a Carmen. A Carmen is a traditional house from the Moorish period that encompasses terraces, gardens and orchards within a walled sort-of small area in the midst of a tight urban setting. Ours happens to be on the hill rising above the old Jewish quarter and on up to the Alhambra right above us, and it is unbelievable. If we look left and up we can see the walls of the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada Mountains beyond, and if we look straight or right and down we see the city of Granada spread out before us with more mountains beyond. The room is perfect; clean, spacious, with all the amenities, the gardens and terraces are classics, the public rooms are bright and tasteful, and the staff is very accommodating. Our streak continues.

The only bad news is, like Lisbon, we are built into the side of a hill so everything is either up or down. We opt for down and head for the Plaza Nueva for our now traditional mid-afternoon lunch. It is only about a fifteen-minute walk down the hill but suspect that it may take longer coming back up. Mary is making noise about eating in our big-time room tonight watching sunsets and twinkling lights and that sort of thing, so John thinks he should order a big lunch. He has an egg, ham and asparagus dish with salad and a beer on the side that is just right, and Mary has a tuna and roasted red pepper baguette with beer, all served at a nice sidewalk table under a tree.


After lunch we do a couple hour walking tour of this part of the city that loops around the Cathedral (2nd largest in Spain don't ya know) and into the crazy medina with shops spilling onto sidewalks with all sorts of Arabic finds. The large plazas all have a history going back over a thousand years when silk traders would park their camels near the fountains to tell the usual stories of traveling salesmen. If you let your imagination take over the whole thing comes to life and there are a few things that probably look the same today. Our walk continues through a part of the commercial area of downtown before we make a u-turn and start the return trip.

At a Pastelleria we pick up a box of empanadillas which will be dinner later and trudge back up the hill to our Carmen (Love it!). The sun sets at 6:00 sharp and we watch it disappear behind the mountains from the small terrace off our room. The lights start coming on while the 6:00 pm church bells are still chiming and soon the whole city is twinkling below us. The night is turning cool so we take advantage of the situation by warming our empanadillas on the room heater and pop the top on a bottle of wine. At about 9:30 we hear drums down the hill and soon a marching band comes marching through our lower neighborhood visible for a few seconds at a time from the terrace. The band, and the moon, and the city lights, and our terrace, and the wine are all working their magic. Hasta Manana!


Today's Picture: The view of the Sierra Nevadas from our room.