ON THE ROAD AGAIN....this time to Granada
What a stroke of luck, I had
booked a lovely hotel overlooking the main tourist attraction of the area,
Alhambra. With 8-10,000 tourists a day to the site we decided it wasn't for us
especially since they restrict your time in the area & we've read several bad reviews about staff there. A walk round town & a cup of tea at a Moorish
tearoom sounded more like us so we jumped on the bus down the very steep hill
into the main historic centre. It was a bit rainy but not so bad that we
couldn't move around comfortably.
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Roofline of the Cathedral, just amazing, unfortunately no photos allowed inside,
luckily the security guard didn't see me take the photo below of the alter area |
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Not sure bronze is the right material for a cushion but it works! |
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Granada from the lookout quite near our hotel |
That night we had put our names down for a flaminco show in a traditional setting of a cave with chairs that lined the walls & the performers sat in with the crowd. The space was about the size of my loungeroom but they managed to squash in over 75 people & still had a good sized dancing area & a small stage for the singers & musicians. What a great night, wonderful dancers & musical accompaniment, such mood & emotion. The dancers were both young & 'more mature' shall we say, male & female & they all danced with great passion, what legs they moved at a million miles an hour! or maybe that's a million taps a minute! The noise was almost deafening with the foot stamping, the cane banging, the guitars, the drums, the singing & finally the clapping all in a confined space. After the show the bus trip took us back via a scenic view point to look at the city lights, very pretty & the rain held off long enough for us to make the short walk there & then back to the bus.
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In this shot you can see how small the room
actually was & the 'well worn' dance floor |
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The Alhambra, at night, our hotel was at the back of that somewhere! |
We decided to stay an extra night here as we didn't feel we had seen much of the city the first day as we didn't arrive until after lunch & Grant wanted to get to the fire station on the Monday morning rather than the weekend. That turned out to be a good plan as we had a chance to move further afield in the city, to the Plaza de Toros, along the Espanade full of beautiful bronze sculptures, into the Catherdral (OMG that was fantastic) & have a late lunch in a busy cafe.
From the city you can see the Sierra Nevada range with its snow capped peaks & with a few hours available before dark we decided to drive as far up as we could. The road was as scary as all get-out, I had to shut my eyes a few times as the road was narrow & the drop unbelievably close to the side of the road with only a knee high guard rail. We got up to just over 2,500 metres before it began to actually snow (just a little but nevertheless it was snow!) so we decided that was our cue to do a U-turn & head back down the hill. We managed to take some lovely photos of the surrounding mountain tops & a bit of the snow too.
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The road up the Sierra Nevada Mountains to reach the snowline |
We got home just on dark but still had a quiet evening at 'home' to catch up on our sleep after the late night before.
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View across a valley & just a small orange orchard,
we saw millions of orange trees |
Monday morning we went to the fire station then headed off via the scenic route to Cartagena. We had planned this to be a day in the car with frequent photo stops & that is exactly how it turned out wonderful mountain scenery as we drove through the Sierra Nevada Ranges then along the coastline, most enjoyable trip which took almost all day as we made numerous 'photo' stops.
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Panorama of the Sierra Nevada mountains & one of dozens of small mountain towns |
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Leaving the snow-topped mountains behind us |
One unusual thing we noticed was the huge acreage that is used for hothouses, they are metal structures with plastic coverings, we presume for the winter months & sometimes shadecloth which we guess is the summer option. It was hard to tell what was inside but I did see eggplants through a torn section so that is at least one thing they grow under cover. From afar they looked like water in the valleys but when you got closer you could see it was neverending hothouses.
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Acres & acres of vegetables growing in plastic hothouses in the river valleys |
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Glorious ocean views & in the shadow area you can just make out the
windy road we travelled on |
The city of Cartagena is small but it is a lovely clean spot, with a busy cruise ship port that has been recently renovated & includes a promenade, shady trees, cafes & bars, tourist information boards, easy access to the main city sights & a lovely cooling breeze off the sea.
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With the Byzantine wall on the left, this is the land side of the seafront esplanade |
Roman Amphitheatre, the first functional submarine (was invented by a local) & there is a replica outside the maritime museum, roman walls, Castile de la Conception on top of the hill with great city & ocean views, Cartagena has the lot, it was very easy to fill in a couple of days here. The local tourist office ran a short sightseeing bus trip round the city so we took that then spent the rest of our visit strolling & seeing the sights.
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Huge is an understatement! |
The ampitheatre was enormous, those Romans certainly knew how to build things to last. The council have done a lovely job of setting up the entrance & museum, they have used an historic building opposite the town hall which is on a lovely little plaza, then built tunnels under an historic church & installed escalators to get you up to the top of the hill which is about three storeys up so that you end up almost in the ampitheatre without realising it & you have seen statues, recovered artifacts, headstones etc on the way. Probably the best thing of this type we have been into, no stairs to climb, well set out & they didn't destroy anything to do it, so the old church is still in one piece (it needs renovation but I guess they will get to that eventually).
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If you're going to build a castle, got to have good foundations! |
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The harbour, taken from the castle |
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Grant went to the top of the castle tower to get this great shot |
Of course, there was the obiligatory visit to the fire station, as we left the city, that went really well because a couple of the men could speak a little english, so that always helps plus they had a new station they wanted to show off. We had one 'fatality' while we were there, our little computer mouse died, Grant walked to the electrical store & picked up another one, unfortunately it doesn't have all the pretty lights on it like our old one but oh well, you cannot have everything.
After our stopover in Cartagena we headed further north to Valencia, there was a scenic coastal road available so rather than the motorway we took the 'long cut' as we mostly do, who wants to look at motorways anyway.
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The view from our balcony at Valencia |
What a stroke of luck, we had booked an apartment in Valencia as we felt we needed a bit of space & to prepare our own food. It turned out to be on the 13th floor with magnificent views from the balcony. Still no english language TV, why do they dub over in Spanish every show, in Scandinavia they play the show in english with Norwegian etc subtitles? Anyway that is enough complaining, for today.
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The old city market building, still used for fresh foods market every day |
Valencia, like so many cities here, has two sides the old city which is full of narrow walkways & roads, fabulous buildings, plazas, fountains, statues & let's not forget the tourist shops. The second side is the new with high rise buildings, apartment blocks, theatres, museums, wide tree-lined avenues, parks & recreation areas & shopping centres.
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Examples of the wonderful 17th & 18th Century buildings |
The one thing that really stood out here was the fact that they had diverted the river after disasterous flooding in the 1950s. That was a feat on its own I should think but the old river bed has been converted into one long, long parkland that runs through the entire city with fountains, statues, cycleways, running tracks, sports fields, lots of big shady trees. It is a lovely place & I am sure the locals use it a lot especially in the hot summer months.
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The amazing new structures in the 'old river bed' like this Science Museum |
Another highlight was the collection of really modern buildings down towards the port. A theatre that would give the opera house a run for its money, a museum, art gallery, open air but covered tropical garden area & all of this looking like it was in the middle of a lake because of the shallow ponds & fountains that ran round & under all the structures. In the summer sun the whole area would have shimmered but still be a cool refuge in the heat, really lovely area & a tribute to the architects.
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Lovely fountains all over the city |
On the road again, towards our ultimate destination for Spain, that is Barcelona. We had a one night stop in Tortosa, just to break the journey up really as it was a bit far for one trip & we had time to spare. Must say we were pleasantly surprised when we called into the tourist information office to find a lovely brand new facility with modern hologram type presentation showing the three religions that have co-existed here for centuries: Jewish, Christian & Muslim & giving a bit of historical background into the castles etc.
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Protective fortress built by the Knights Templar to protect against invasion |
We followed the signposted guided walk through the old jewish quarter, thank goodness there were signs or we could have been lost for days in that rabbit warren of narrow lanes with identical buildings all round. Then went up to the fortress & then the castle (I am growing to hate steps). These had been built by the Knights Templar, in the 1100s, as part of a defensive ring of forts, towers & castles through the entire area.
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Rabbit-warren, couldn't get much narrower
or we wouldn't have gotten through |
Next morning we hit the road for Tarragona, another shortish drive so we didn't rush. Arriving here & finding our accommodation was a nightmare! There was a marathon being run through the city streets & the police had all the roads shut off, our GPS couldn't cope at all....recalculating....every time we missed a turn-off because of detours. Eventually we turned the GPS off, followed the traffic until we thought we were close-ish then just used the map to see if we could get find it. We parked, illegally but what the heck it seems that you can park anywhere here as long as you put your hazard lights on & I walked till I found the hotel. They directed us round the back lanes, along a one way street the wrong way & into the carpark, phew! The roads were shut off for a number of hours but the car was safely parked & we were on foot then so it didn't matter.
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Gorgeous shot as we drove through the mountains
between Tortosa & Tarragona |
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View over the beach at Tarragona, that is the roman amphitheatre in the
foreground, maybe you can even see the marathon runners on the road |
As it turned out our hotel was perfectly located, on a gorgeous esplanade so we could enjoy an evening stroll, along with half the city's population it seemed & the Christmas lights which were great by the way. We were only 50 metres from the view point at the end of the esplanade that overlooked the port & beach area, about 100 metres from the roman amphitheatre & parkland & about 200 metres from the roman circus.
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One of several surviving vaults, 193 metres
long, used to support the upper tiers/seating |
Having not seen a circus (that is where they held chariot races) before, we chose that as the place for us to visit in the afternoon. The ruins had been uncovered in the late 1950s when they demolished some old homes, so once they realised the importance of the find & the extent of the excavation they got too, demolishing a whole small suburb. There are just three entrance portals left out of about 50 so that knowledge gave us some perspective of how enormous it must once have been. There were also a couple of the massive, stone, arched tunnels that used to run the full length of the circus & were used for access but also to support the seating areas. Now these were enormous, you could have fitted a double decker cattle truck in there & not have been able to find it! That might be an exaggeration....but you get the idea!
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Wonderful Christmas lights decorating the esplanade in Tarragona |
Next stop & our final destination for Spain was Barcelona. It was only a hundred kilometre drive from Tarragona, we dropped our luggage & assorted junk off then returned our hire car to the airport, catching the train & metro back to the apartment. We liked the Metro here, easy to use, clean, safe & frequent plus we bought a 10 trip ticket which was a bit of a saving.
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Sagrada Familia, had to put this one in to prove we actually were there! |
Sagrada Familia was our first call, it was within walking distance of our apartment, downhill fortunately. Now this is a magnificent structure & we decided to go the whole hog & do the lot! So entry, audioguide, lift up the tower for city panorama, museum, model makers' workshop, no holds barred on this visit. We haven't often decided to do all that a place has to offer but we felt this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see, learn about & hopefully get some insight into this truely awsome structure.
Antoni Gaudi took over the architectural control of the building when it was only a crypt & not even a finished one at that but within a year they were holding church services in the crypt area & the above ground construction was underway. As you probably know it is still a 'works in progress' but they hope to have it finished by 2020, maybe we should come back then for another look-see? The audio tour gave insights into such things as the colour palette of the stained glass windows, the load bearing properties of the internal columns which hold up the massive roof etc etc. So many facts it is impossible to put them all down here.
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Columns that appear to split into three branches like a tree |
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View of Barcelona from the bridge between towers! |
The lift to the top of one of the towers (sure this wasn't in Gaudi's original plan but the removal of a spiral staircase was enough to fit it in) then a short climb up the last spiral steps till we got to the bridge that connected the two steeples. This is where the view was, as you might imagine, I couldn't actually stand out there although I did manage to get across to the second steeple & back again (thank goodness it was solid stone & not a glass-bottomed walkway like they would build today). Grant chose to walk down the stairs while I took the lift, the spiral staircase was so tight he was dizzy when I met him at the bottom!
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Rambling along La Rambla |
Then a short Metro ride, just a couple of stations, to get us to the port area & the statue on its enormous column, of Christopher Columbus. What a shame we forgot that you can actually climb up that statue, when we got home & realised we could have kicked ourselves but we weren't going back. From here we walked up La Ramba, the famous pedestrian walkway with parks, seating, restaurants, fountains, children's playgrounds, markets, oh & let's not forget the souvenier shops. Quick Metro trip to the Sante Estacio (central station) to pick up our Eurail Passes, we have decided that the next few weeks until we get to Vienna for Christmas with Dani will be spent enjoying the scenery from train windows. Then home & a nice home cooked meal of fish & salad, just what the doctor ordered.
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View from the upper tier of the park |
On our second day Grant popped off to the fire station early while I did a bit of internet research for our rail trip, this was followed by a Metro trip to Parc Guell (Gaudi's famous park). We followed some internet advice about entering from the back to avoid the long uphill climb, so we did this & actually walked down the site. You start of course with the magnificent plaza & its amazing view of the city. We specifically came later in the day so that the sun wouldn't spoil all the photos so it was perfect. We picked up lots of ideas for mosaics at home!!
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Homes (now museums) that look like
gingerbread houses |
The park is unbelievable & I don't think photos do it justice, it is one of those places you have to experience, the tactile nature of the smooth tiles with the rough grouting, the sharp edges of the broken tiles with the smooth feel of the curved tiles used as edgings, not to mention the coolness of the tiles when you sat on the seats & the way they sort of hugged your back so comfortable for a seat made out of ceramic & concrete, & last but not least the wonderful colour combinations. You look at the white mosaics, yeah white, then realise that it is actually bits of blue, grey, pink, cream, ivory you name it but no white at all! As you might have guessed I liked this park.
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Two curators working on restoring the mosaics, that is some view they have |
Next we made a big decision, maybe not the right one either, but we decided to walk home via Calle Diagonal. It is a very long road that as you might have guessed cuts diagonally across the city. Well, several hours & four sore feet later we stumbled up our staircase, fell on to our bed, kicked off our shoes & gave a big sigh of relief, that was one hell of a walk, much further than we had envisaged actually. The first part was downhill from the park, then a gentle downwards slope but the last bit, when we were already 'too pooped to pant' was uphill all the way.
Dinner was pretty simple, boiled the last few eggs, finished up the salad, ate the bagette, ate the yoghurts & basically cleaned out the fridge ready for our departure the next morning early to Toulouse, France.
Goodbye Spain, it was great getting to know you over the last four weeks......
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