Mirador

A classic view of Granada's most famous monument. Today we went to Granada on the bus. This seemed like a great idea at only 5 euros each, as the bus zoomed down the motorway, saving us the hassle and expense of driving and parking in Granada. Once at the bus station, we quickly caught a bus into town and had an amble around visiting the Arab baths and a Moorish house before a pleasant lunch in a near-empty restaurant on the edge of the Albaicin. Typically for us, lunch took a while ... afterwards we reckoned we had time for a walk up through the steep, narrow streets of the Albaicin to the Mirador de San Nicolas (blip), before heading back down to catch the 4:30 bus.

And we would have, had it not turned out that S had misread the timetable -- it was actually the 4:15 bus, so we missed it by 10 minutes. And the next one wasn't till 8:30. Never mind -- hop on a bus back into town and visit the Alhambra! There were so few tourists about we couldn't imagine there would be a problem getting tickets. So we slogged up the hill from the Plaza Nueva and arrived breathlessly at the ticket window half an hour before the gates closed at six, so too late to get in. Sigh. That left us with three hours to kill. Back down the hill by a different route, and we filled in the time with the rather mundane activities of coffee, a bit of shopping, and hanging around in the bus station to ensure we didn't miss the (last) bus. The bus itself, when we finally caught it, was very efficient, depositing us virtually on our doorstep at 9:15. So we'll take it again, but try to plan better next time ...