Andalusia "Family Vacation"

In La Alhambra, Granda, Spain

Coming back to Andalusia (Southern Spain) after forty years was somewhat of a shock.  Many things have certainly changed.  The region and people are more prosperous, but still not as prosperous as their fellow Spaniards in Barcelona and Madrid.

First impressions made when arriving at a new up to date airport or riding on a modern, sleek highways make you think that it is just like the rest of Spain or Europe; the sense of the old Andalusia, however, does return, once you spend just a little time there.

Andalusia is a place unto itself--almost timeless--and the people are quite different from their fellow countrymen.

For one thing, they are much more aloof and distrustful of others and a little less quick to warm up to visitors than their Spanish cousins--something we experienced 40 years ago, and something that doesn't seem to have changed too much in that time. Just underneath the veneer of modernity, their Islam influenced history is very evident.

One reason for returning to Andalusia was that we wanted to make sure that John and Bonnie got to see La Alhambra: the 13th century Moorish Palace in Granada.  While we were in Barcelona we learned that you needed to get tickets ahead of time as it is one of the most visited sites in all of Spain.

We finally procured tickets for Saturday morning at 10:00 which would be cutting things a little close as we were not scheduled to land at the Granada airport until just before 9:00.

Fortunately, the plane actually landed a few minutes early, and while the others waited for the luggage, I (Larry) hurried out to the car rental counter to procure the car. It is a small airport, so the counter is right outside of baggage claim.

The young woman at the desk was charming and helpful, and spoke really good English. She recommended full coverage and renting a GPS, both of which I opted for--big mistake!  (The car that was originally to cost us less than 200 euros ended up costing more than 600 for three days--but that's another story!)


She handed me the keys and the obviously outmoded GPS, and told me that the Nissan Juke was in lane number 15; walking out to the lot, I thought that a Juke was not going to be big enough for the four of us and our six pieces of luggage and assorted other bags.  Well, it wasn't, but as the time was now 9:30, we decided that we needed to get to the Alhambra rather than argue about the car.

With the location already keyed into the GPS, we actually managed to make it there just before 10:00 o'clock--only to find the entrance swarmed with hundreds of folks waiting to get in, but we had no idea which group was ours.

Frantically scrambling from one group to another, we were finally directed to the Welcome Center. Thanks to technology (we'd bought the tickets online), they were able to locate our group and send us back to the meting place. Apparently there are so many people wanting to see the place that the authorities have restricted the entrances to three times a day: 10:00; 2:00 and 6:00.

Very few individual tickets are sold and almost everyone has to tour the site with a group.  You are introduced to your tour guide and given a little radio transponder with earplugs which enables you to hear your guide without their having to compete shouting with all of the other groups.  And there are a lot of other groups.

Our memories of touring La Alhambra, 40 years ago, are of walking around a nearly deserted, somewhat neglected, 13th century Moorish complex.  We remember marveling at the gardens and some of the beautiful courtyards, but most of all, feeling that we had the place to ourselves with all the time we wanted to spend there.

Not so today. There must have been 500 or more people touring the complex at the same time as us--each in a group of 30 or so people.

The Alhambra is a huge place, and our tour lasted more than two and one half hours, much of which we felt like we were on a forced march.  It was almost impossible to see the interiors of some of the buildings because of the crowds, and there was no time to linger at a beautiful view or contemplate the many years of history that the place holds.

At the end of our tour, we were all exhausted and disappointed.  We could never recommend the experience, even if the Alhambra is one of the marvels of the history as their publicity claims. Like so many places we have visited--the Vatican, Trevi Fountain, or Cinque Terre, there are just too, too many tourists!

Our own version of Family Vacation

Tour over and it was time to squeeze back in the car; literally squeeze--John and Bonnie were in the backseat with three pieces of luggage stacked up between them.  We keyed in the address to the apartment and merrily set out for our lodgings.

Twenty minutes later, after wending our way through the very narrow streets old Granda, we found ourselves stuck between two buildings on what our GPS claimed was the street leading to our apartment.

Just in the nick of time, a local woman stopped us and told us, what should have been obvious, that this really wasn't a street and if we went any further, we would end up driving down some very steep stairs just meters ahead.

Granada, from a hill above our apartment

Frustrated and cursing our out of date GPS, we called our landlady, got other landmarks and started out once more; but again, within 15 minutes, we were totally lost and obviously in the wrong part of town.

 Finally, after a couple more calls, she suggested we stop a taxi and ask them to lead us to the place.  That strategy worked--we would have never found the place otherwise, because the street really isn't a street, but a "cuesta" or staired lane that is impossible to drive on.

Once in the apartment, we found it to be reasonably comfortable, although the WIFI never worked very effectively and the showers had limited hot water and leaked all over the bathroom floor. Those caveats aside, it was very centrally located just off Elvira street, so touring Granada was fairly easy.  Having a great little vegetarian restaurant just next door, Paprika, made it even better.

We enjoyed exploring some of the steep streets just behind our apartment and seeing some of the old, old neighborhoods with many of the houses and structures dating from the 13th to 16th centuries. Still, our most lasting impression of Granda is that it seems pretty seedy and run down.

Andalusian countryside

So we were happy to leave Granda after our two nights stay.  We had parked the car and not used it while we were in Granada, but once we reloaded and realized once again just how crowded it was, we decided to drive back to the airport and plead our case for a bigger one.

Surprisingly, the car rental people were very understanding, and we ended up in a BMW SUV with a built-in GPS, so our ride to Cordoba and then on to Sevilla seemed like luxury!

Riding across Andalusia, it looks and feels like the US southwest or northern Mexico.  It's very dry and punctuated with dramatic mesas and hills. No wonder the Spanish conquistadors felt like home. Mostly rural, there is lots of agricultural development, but you can go miles without seeing a town or other settlement.

Cordoba provided a pleasant half day interlude.  The 13th-century La Mesquita, originally built as a Muslim mosque but converted to a Christian cathedral after the conquest, is well worth seeing.

There were quite a few tourists, but nothing like the mobs we had encountered in Granda--and there are moments when you are alone in one section or another and you could actually get a sense of the history and grandeur of the setting.

A Catholic cathedral was plunked down in the middle of it, sometime in the 14th century, but fortuitously much of the old structure was left untouched. We spent more than an hour ambling through the entire complex.

After a pleasant lunch, we returned to the car and completed our drive to Sevilla without incident.  This time the GPS got us to our apartment, although the streets in the old quarter of town do seem to get progressively more narrow as you wend your way in, and the GPS had not wanted to take us to our apartment numbered 3--it turns out that's because the street becomes a pedestrian way in front of our building. But we made it without dealing with the maddening detours and dead ends of Granada.

Alcazar de Sevilla

Our AirBnB apartment in Sevilla was one of our most disappointing on this trip, if not ever.  Although conveniently located and close to lots of the historic sights, it was not very clean and many of the appliances were not in good working order.  Still we did enjoy our stay; there is much to see and do in the city, and two days were not nearly enough.

The Sevilla Cathedral was huge and quite interesting, with many treasures and fine works of art, including Christopher Columbus's tomb. We also enjoyed visiting the Alcazar, finding it more rewarding than the Alhambra. Many of the rooms are almost as old and quite as lovely as any that we saw at the Alhambra, and there were lots fewer tourists, so the experience could be savored and enjoyed much more thoroughly.

We enjoyed walking the streets, sampling the foods, and like Barcelona, there were quite a few street musicians and entertainers.  Among the most interesting were two young Flamenco dancers whom we discovered on our last evening in the town, providing a lovely final impression.