On the ground in Granada it is one crazy town on a Saturday! Full of costumed, raucous stag and hen parties singing, dancing and boozing in the streets all around us while we were having lunch and it was only 2pm! Rosie and The Operator guess we had found party central in Granada! Time to get out of here…Rosie and The Operator are feeling way to old…and to sober. We have some sights to see…..Lets start below.
Granada is home to 233,000 and has a real old town feel to it with the Darro river running along side the oldest street in the town. The Carrera del Darro hasn’t changed much in look since the first houses and bridges were built in the 15th Century.
Wandering along this narrow cobbled road felt like you were stepping back in time. The creek like river flowed down the narrow channel between the houses and the road, grass grew on the banks and a goose was standing there just like it was 1645…then a car tooted to clear a path and the spell was broken.
It is so picturesque, quaint and romantic looking what a peaceful place to sit at a café table and feel so close to the past.
The street ends in a square with great views across the skinny river to The Alhambra (Red Castle) the most famous historical site in Granada and the second most visited attraction in Spain. It looked so unimposing on its hilltop, who would have thought this building was so famous….and Rosie and The Operator do not have tickets to visit it!
Rosie tried to book online two months earlier from New Zealand, she knew she had to book in advance to visit…but I guess I had to book earlier…there were no tickets available at all for the next three months.
Rosie and The Operator though had a cunning plan, we were not coming all this way to miss out! Tonight, at midnight, all will be revealed.
The best view of this massive monument though is uphill from here at the Mirador San Nicolas…a classic look out spot which highlights The Alhambra sprawled along a wooded hilltop with the dark, snow sprinkled mountains of the Sierra Nevada shrouded in the background.
The Alhambra or Red Castle is one of Spain’s most high profile visitor attractions with up to 6000 admissions per day. This fortified palace started life as a walled Citadel in 900AD before going on to become the opulent seat of Granada’s Kings. The showpiece palaces are amongst the finest Islamic buildings in Europe and coupled with the amazing original, formal gardens from that time is Granada’s headline act. You can see why Rosie wasn’t coming all this way to miss out!
The square of the Mirador was super crowded towards the end of the day, and then the skies opened up and it pored with rain. In unison hundreds of umbrellas opened and at the risk of loosing an eye within the next 10 seconds Rosie and The Operator were out of there.
Rosie clutched The Operator as she traversed downhill on the rain slicked cobbles, the bruises on my knees from Madrid are still fresh and black with only a tinge of green. We both didn’t want another tumble at this stage of our holiday, maybe we should hole up and wait for the rain to pass? Good idea.
This tiny bar was jam packed full of people, all 15 of us, hiding and waiting for the rain to end. It wasn’t going to stop, but it had eased off some so we carried on our descent downhill, Rosie stepping a little more quickly and confidently after a couple of vermouth’s.
Rosie paused under the umbrella and looked at a big gate that was wide open, a few people were walking in….whats in there wondered Rosie, she noted the sign on the gate and thought, no, it couldn’t be. Lets go in for a nosey she said to The Operator.
This was a Convent of The Poor Claires…you remember the tale in Madrid of the cloistered nuns that do not have any contact with the outside world….other than sell their cookies they bake to the public for income. Well here they were, another convent in Granada and they had cookies for sale!
Rosie lined up and eagerly pressed the buzzer when it was her turn. The door in front of her unlatched with a clunk, Rosie pulled it open. Inside was a rotary shelving unit with boxes and bags of cookies facing Rosie, named and with prices on. A very girlish sounding voice for a 106 year old nun spoke to me in Spanish….oh shit….what now?
She was asking me a question….Rosie said Si….one day that might get me into trouble but Im pretty sure the question was do you want to buy biscuits? I said out loud the pack I wanted to buy, took the bikkies off the shelf and lay the money down on the rotary shelf then thanked her.
The turntable whizzed around and Rosie could hear two people talking in machine gun fast Spanish….the turntable turned back to Rosie. On an empty shelf was a my change and a bag of biscuits…oooops…Rosie had a pack of biscuits already in her hands….DOH….Rosie had taken the sample biscuits….sorry, sorry, sorry I said as I put the samples back on the shelf, took my bag and change and shut the door.
I think she gave me a blessing for buying the biscuits…or cursed me in Jesus name for ‘stealing’ her samples…Rosie is sure it was the former because she felt a satisfied warm glow after the whole experience. Rosie cant wait for a cup of Bell tea, (Yes, I have tea bags in my suitcase) and a bikkie when she gets back to the nice dry warm apartment!
So, its nearly midnight, The Operator was up out of bed, booting up the laptop to be ready at midnight for when The Alhambra releases about 40 tickets for the next days visitations. Rosie has been tracking this, they seem to do this everyday…there was no way Rosie was coming all this way and missing out on visiting here.
Yes, we got two of the last available tickets, albeit a late visitation time of 7.00pm though….beggars cant be choosers. We are going to The Alhambra! Night, night, can’t wait to visit this beautiful sight with you tomorrow!
Sunday was the perfect time to be out early wandering the deathly quiet streets of Grenada! The only exuberant noise in the town was coming from the church bells. It was great to wander around and soak up the atmosphere…even though ALL of the sights were closed on Sunday.
White, boxy houses climb like a cubists dream composition up the hillsides behind us in the Albazyin district.
Then there are the crazy places we stumbled along on our way to the Jewish Realjo area of town.
Few people were about and most of the shops were shut with their roller doors drawn and locked tight. It is these security doors and the crumbly buildings that give life and colour to the worn streets of the Realejo neighborhood with their vibrant Street Art. Most of the shop rollers had art on them pertaining to what they sold inside…its not hard to guess and the art is brilliant, never to be seen again in the light of day when the shops are open, like a hidden treasure.
Further down the street the buildings themselves came to life with their version of artistic endeavor, muted earthy colours that seemed to blend in with the glum dull day around us.
The day itself was slowly deteriorating and getting grayer, colder (6c) and wetter, who would have thought we were in Spain! Trust us to be in Granada on the only dud day of the week. Typical holiday luck for Rosie and The Operator.
With everything around us shut, it was a surprise to come to St Jerome’s Monastery and it was open for visits! It was huge, the windowless exterior had the most impressive fully laden orange trees both outside…….and inside.
This monastery was built in the 16th Century and has the most beautiful deep cloisters that enclose the interior orangery and surround the whole complex in a nice dry square. Rosie was grumbling a little, for one of the only tourist attractions open today in Granada the monastery was pretty austere in true monastic fashion.
The Monks in the Order of St Jerome lived in this monastery from the 1520s right up until the Order of Dissolution in 1835 which banned most religious orders. After that the monastery was used as an army barracks until it was restored in the 1960s. Then in 1977 the Nuns of the Order of St Jerome moved in and have lived here ever since, leading a ‘contemplative life’ away from the public and looking after the monastery.
Set in the floor of the cloisters are memorial stones to all the 500 monks who had served the order and are laid to rest underneath them. The dates on them were pretty impressive and made Rosie look at the worn footpath under the cloister where she could imagine seeing the robed monks walking laps in contemplation.
Then grumbling Rosie stepped through this door and her jaw dropped.
Inside was the most beautiful, ornate church ever! In the middle of the minimal, basic monastery.
It was crazy! The sculptures, the colour, the vividness, the gold…….and that ceiling! ….and the amazing eight level gilt alter.
And Rosie and The Operator pretty much had it all to ourselves. The wealth and grandeur of the churches we have visited here in Spain is incredible. Rosie cannot get over them.
Rosie and The Operator were on a mission to get our electronic tickets to the Alhambra exchanged for real tickets. Rosie doesn’t know why, surely the copy on our phone would suffice, but apparently not. Quite close to where we are wandering around today there is a machine where we can input our reservation numbers and the tix will spit out….spinning around in a circle on the corner of the grand avenue….Rosie declared….that way.
Step Back! Yelled The Operator….too late, the passing traffic had saturated Rosie in a tidal wave of water from a huge puddle on the road. Honestly, Rosie was dripping. The intersection was pretty crowded with people…Rosie copped the brunt of it and at least the Spanish seemed to be too polite to laugh outright at Rosie.
We got our tickets and decided to go to lunch and have a few drinks. We would head out to The Alhambra about 5pm because we could access the gardens early and then be ready for our palace admission at 7pm.
Rosie and The Operator never visited The Alhambra…we got side tracked by a bottle of wine, a couple of glasses of vermouth and copious tapas.
There you go, solid proof that long lunchtimes ruin you for the rest of the day. Rosie and The Operator are not crying to much about there aborted visit. We are a little ‘palaced out’ here in Spain and it was pouring with rain. Rosie was kind of happy for a night in with a Netfix movie and a cuppa with a cookie from the nunnery.
Tomorrow we are off to Malaga, the end of the holiday and the beginning of Rosies month in Spain. Rosie is always nervous about the area she has booked to stay in and cant wait to check it out!
See you in Malaga!
