Lost in Granada and Irritated at the Alhambra...

9 July

Yesterday, since we are waiting to hear back from the broker about the Hanse 400 (which is a 2012 demo that's never been launched, not a 2010), we decided to head further south and do a little sightseeing. We've got the car until next Saturday, so we might as well use it. We were tired of the industrial towns anyway.

We booked another of these nice hotels we've been staying in (NH Hoteles, should you be looking) in the old historic part of town and headed towards Granada. Frank was there years ago and saw the Alhambra then, but Max and I were not.

The GPS couldn't find the hotel on all the little one-way streets and our non-existent Spanish was totally inadequate for understanding the directions that various helpful people gave us. Finally, a friendly man on a motor scooter took pity on us once he realized that we were not going to be able to find it on our own and took us right there.

We were the first--and only  people at the breakfast spread this morning when it opened at 7:00. No self- respecting Spaniard would ever eat breakfast that early unless s/he had to be at work, I think. Even all the tourists from the night before were still sleeping off the night before, I guess.

The Alhambra was a twenty-minute walk up a steep hill from our hotel, so, fortified by breakfast, we headed out. We wanted to be early because we wanted to go before it got hot and we had to check out of our hotel by noon.

We got up there at 8, only to discover that the Spaniards apparently don't believe in signs, so we spent nearly an hour looking for the ticket place only to wait there for another 20 minutes. Almost an hour and a half of our morning gone. Stuff like that makes me think that I understand why the economy is so bad here. If it takes ten times as long as it has to to do something, then nothing will get done. Efficiency and logic are not dirty words!

In any case, the Alhambra itself was definitely worth the wait. The inscriptions from the Koran on the walls, the tiles, and the beautiful filigree everywhere are absolutely gorgeous! It wasn't even that hot because the whole place is designed for maximum ventilation.

Now we are on the road to Seville where we will finally do laundry and I will get caught up on the pictures...