Greetings from Granada.

Tuesday 15th March, the weather had improved sufficiently to enable us to set off on the bike, heading in a North Easterly direction towards the Historic city of Granada, approximately 220 kms away. With our heart rate increasing we said goodbye to Puerto Banus, glad to be back on the road and looking forward to arriving at our next destination, some two hours or so down the road, weather and traffic permitting.


Making sure our trusty steed was settled for the night.



 The sat nav (Oh so incredibly valuable)helped us to quickly locate our hotel in Granada (arriving at about 4pm),helping us to safely negotiate all those chuffin narrow one-way streets, which can, on the odd occasion, cause us a little angst! The hotel (The Granada Centro), was in a good location just off the historic central area, with safe parking outside for our trusty steed, and the room - an excellent large bright and airy room with the requisite steaming hot water.



The Albaycin Quarter looking back from the Alhambra



Once changed, refreshed and armed with a map of the city, we set out to discover the delights of the highly acclaimed Unesco World Heritage site known as The Alhambra Palace and the Historic medieval Arabic and Moorish quarter known locally as Albaycin. However, due to the time of day and the advice given by the hotel reception, we decided to visit the Moorish quarter first and leave the Alhambra Palace till the following day, before we moved on to Murcia, our next destination

The old cobblestone streets
and a' Bizzarre' trader

 Granada is a truly remarkable city that boasts a university - the 3rd most important in Spain and the home of traditional Spanish guitar making. What is so remarkable about the city is how the old and new fit seamlessly and comfortably together; At one point we were walking through some very narrow and inclined cobblestone streets rising up to the old Albaycin (Arabic quarter), the usual ‘Bazaar style’ shops, with all their goods and paraphernalia hanging up outside; Then back down the hill and a little further on it was like we had been transported to Oxford street in London with all the glitz and razamatazz, the modern shopping area with high risebuildings all beautifully clean and pristine in condition, and teaming with people and life, even at 10 in the evening - A real joy to witness











The Albaycin area with its narrow streets and tall buildings, Moorish in archeticture, being so close together, allowed for little light to permeate through to ground level, and could, I suspect, be quite intimidating particularly in the dark of evening, and the residents, though not unfriendly, were not welcoming either. But no such problem occurred for us as we explored the area in daylight visiting the numerous tourist attractions including the beautiful church Iglesia del Salvador, and from outside the Iglesia san Pedro y San Pablo we took pictures across the valley to the Alhambra Palace and in the distance the beautiful snow clad Sierra Nevada mountain range(see pics), which has quite an
extensive ski area. Which coincidentally, (for our ski friends in & around Netherseal) is only approx 40 minutes or so down the valley to Granada - perhaps one for the future?

You can just see the snow clad Mountain range.



We spent the entire late afternoon into early evening walking around the old quarter soaking up the wonderful sights. As evening fell we moved seamlessly into the modern part of the city and were wowed by everything around us. The bright retail outlets, the wonderful architecture and what struck us most was the cleanliness of the streets and the condition of the buildings, there was no sign of decay or deterioration, a vibrant and seemingly very busy retail centre. We absorbed as much of it as we could in the time we had, we even enjoyed a pizza and a couple of glasses of wine at a local restaurant before crawling back to our hotel for a very welcome kip.



A Beautiful sunset to end a Beautiful day.

  The next morning we packed our bags and prepped in readiness to leave for Murcia later in the day, after we had explored the Alhambra Palace and its surroundings. The palace is built on the Sabika hill where the earth is notoriously dark red in colour, the peasants from the Granada valley called it ‘al-kalat al-Hamra’ (the castle built of red earth) and hence the Alhambra got it’s name. I have to say it was quite a climb up to the palace, but well worth the shortness of breath, and a little sweat. It is without question a tourist honeypot, here we were in middle of March, OMG, thousands of visitors (a complete surprise to us, from all over the world, with a surprising amount from Japan, God only knows what mayhem there must be in high season), all milling around like ants going in different directions.

Well, needless to say it didn’t take us long to realise that if we were to fully enjoy this experience we would not make Murcia in the same day. So with help from the Tourist centre at the Palace, we contacted our hotel and managed to reserve another room for an extra night stay.

I can only describe it as an outstanding and wonderful experience, completely and utterly unexpected, a haven, a place of great revere and peace with the most beautifully designed and manicured gardens with water featuring throughout, and all about ready to burst into bloom, (we can only imagine what these gardens would be like in the summer season.)

You can probably tell that we were completely bowled over by what we saw and suffice to say that we didn’t leave the Alhambra Palace till 7.30pm. If anybody does visit Spain, Granada is, in our opinion, a must visit city. We dined at a typical Spanish bar on our way back to the hotel and thoroughly enjoyed some local cuisine (full English breakfast) only joking, with plenty of the vitamin B (beer and wine).

We slept like babies and woke up the next morning with Murcia Fm in the air......



Thats it for now, but before we sign off I can’t help noticing the date and remembering that Cheltenham and Paddy’s day are imminent, so to Keith, this year I hope you don’t loseyour shirt at Cheltenham cos you lost me mine last year!!!!!!!! and to everyone have a great Paddy’s day, remembering there’s work next day......

Loads of love The Intrepid Bikers, back on the job xxxx