Monday, June 27, 2011

Day 11

I had pre-booked an excursion to Granada for today and our driver turned up at 08:00am as planned to collect us.  The drive to Granada took two hours, with a 25min stop at a roadside service stop, where we had coffee, shopped and marvelled at the huge hunks of ham, complete with trotter attached, that were hanging up for sale.

It was fascinating, as we got close to Granada, to see the snow on the tops of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, while we were sitting in our sleeveless tops, in 30 deg C heat.

We drove straight to the Alhambra Palace, the main reason for our visit to Granada, and were met by our lovely local tour guide, who had a completely incomprehensible, unpronounceable name!  Now this is where things get rather sad…. Grant’s camera lens had by this stage completely given up the ghost and the Alhambra Palace is a photographer’s dream come true!  It is absolutely beautiful!  Grant was SO frustrated.  Fortunately, Rox had her camera handy and took some good photos. 

We started our tour in the Generalife gardens, then moved on to the Alcazaba (ruins dating back to the 9th century) and the palace of Charles V and finally, the best part, the Royal Palace – the Casa Real (parts of which date back to the 15th century).  Unfortunately, the Court of the Lions - one of the most beautiful parts of the Alhambra was undergoing renovations.  (We had to laugh.... nearly every place we have been to in Europe this year has had some sort of scaffolding up!  It's quite uncanny... and annoying!)  Below are some photos, but I have to say, photos just don’t do the place justice!













After our tour finished, our driver picked us up and dropped us off in the centre of Granada, to get some lunch and have a little browse around the shops.  Grant managed to replace his lens… a bit late in the day, unfortunately!

We then came back to the resort, enjoying the scenery on the way back – lots and lots of olive groves! 

1 comment:

BP said...

what a terrific looking place!