A farewell dinner included pheasant pate with blueberry sauce and fig cake; ah, nouveau cooking hits the provinces.
I drive the Audi A3 through the Sierras, on the windiest roads I’ve even driven…makes Kangaroo Valley look like a picnic. K after k of up and down mountains till we come to the Costa del Sol. I have to report that it was covered in sea mist and on the seaward side nothing could be seen.
On the wrong side of the Autopiste however the Urbanisations as the dreadful high density suburbettes are called, are excruciatingly bad. All seem to be built in the last decade and cover hillsides like a modernist’s vomit. Who lives in them? The English who look for 300 + days of unforgiving sunshine and these big blue skies, or the Spanish themselves? More research required.
Granada at last. Quick first impression is that it is a provincial Madrid and wandering the streets is delightful.We wind up through a few car free old streets to our charming boutique hotel.
It is a skip away from the grand house with its Arabic echos where St John of God died in 1550 in what has become a home for the elderly. This John is the patron saint of the unlikely grabbag of hospitals, the sick, nurses, firefighters, alcoholics, and booksellers!!
Saw the lead tombs of Isabella and Frederick in the Royal Chapel crypt. Just wanted to make sure they were dead given the role they played in the Inquisition.
Tomorrow the Alhambra! The peak of Islamic Spain! Tickets purchased, Robert Irwin’s book to hand. I am ready.
I’ve been thinking about a blogging traveller’s morse code…..perhaps some would prefer it if I just gave Mr Google’s reference for all the highlights. Too late. I am on a roll.
In response to a query pictures will be added when I get home. All thanks to the cyber smart daughter who is saving me from the extremes of my personality in what I write.
A Game Old Dame 