We had to kill some time over Christmas and new year as there were no tickets to the Alhambra available before the Spanish festive season is over after the 6th of January. We arrived on the 6th and but it was a miserable rainy day and our parking had no public transport anywhere close, so we buckled down and spent the day in the van working on things like this web site.
On the much awaited 7th we rode our bikes downhill into Granada. After taking a wrong turn somewhere we were routed along a tiny dirt road and entered the great town of Granada through rubbish dumps and shady roads feeling rather exposed.
Once we were in the centre things got better. Spanish towns seem to look after their bike riders quite nicely – just until you reach the historic center. Once there it gets awfully hard to find a place to securely lock up your bike and feel reasonably safe about leaving it.
We wasted lots of time running around, enjoying the beautiful town and having a delightful lunch in a nice vegan restaurant before heading to the Alhambra. This is when we found out that it is generally recommended to plan 4 hours for a visit there before proceeding to the Nasrid Palaces. As the ticket to the Palaces has a set time we were already down to 3 hours and nowhere close to our destination. We attempted to proceed quickly and wasted some more time finding a good place to secure the bikes and jumping on the wrong bus. By the time we arrived at the gates of the Alhambra we had just two hours left.
Turns out we are quick sight seers, 2 hours was almost enough, 2 1/2 would have been just fine. The Alhambra and especially the Nasrid Palaces are amazing as expected but also full of tourists.
The next day we changed to a more convenient van parking and used public transport to go to town. Granada has a lot of beautiful sights to see. We specifically enjoyed wandering along Carrera del Darro and up into Albaicin and Sacromonte.
The icing on the cake was a visit to a flamenco cave in the evening followed by a very enjoyable stroll back home through town. Gaylyn had a good chat with a young spanish girl and flamenco aficionado sitting next to her who rated the performance an 8 out of 10.
