Spain - Granada

We only stayed in Granada two nights, enough so that we could see the Alhambra during our allotted entry time. To prevent overcrowding, they assign you a "start" time to see the Nasrid Palaces, and they only allow 850 people/day. We had reserved in advance for a 2pm entry time, and since we slept in until past noon, we were really rushing to make it! The Alhambra is quite a maze (and at the top of a hill), and at each turn as we showed our ticket to someone to confirm that we were running in the right direction, they exclaimed, you need to run! --We know!

We made it with 3 minutes to spare, huffing and puffing in 95 degree heat and stuck inside a palace with no water to drink. We survived of course, and I really enjoyed the Palaces. The architecture reminded me of palaces I had seen in Morocco, and I love these types of archways and arabic decoration. I have loads of phots on my smugmug site (link to the right), but I will restrain myself but just putting a few here.




After the palaces, we could enjoy the rest of the Alhambra at our leisure, but it was so hot we decided to search out ice cream first. And then, we saw it. In the distance, a glistening beer tap! There was a small hut that used to be a well in the square of the Alhambra that now serves ice cream, sodas, beer and even sangria on tap. Woo hoo!

Funnily enough, we made some new friends at the "bar". They are also from San Francisco, and all three of them live in the Presidio! After extolling the virtues of the PresidiGo (or PGo! as I used to call it), we walked around with them for a bit and made plans for later in the evening.

Evening, Part 1: Drinks in the Plaza Nueva

Evening, Part 2: Our own version of running with the bulls through the streets of Granada

And since the boys had no map, no tour book and no hotel reservations --only a vague plan to get up to Barcelona--we invited them to join us for a day at the beach in Malaga

Once in Malaga, we made sure they got their overnight train tickets to Barcleona. What would they do without us?! Goodbye new friends! We hope you don't get maimed running with the bulls in Pamplona....

Lisa and I continued on from Malaga to Marbella where we are spending 6 nights. Sun, sun, sun!