Category: Spain

Yes, this blog is coming in parts.  Unlike the hordes, which seem to come as one whole enchilada wherever we go.  Granada to be fair is about a third the size of Cordoba, so this city can absorb the tourists a little easier, and most of those are taking in the sights of the old Moorish/Roman area.  I won’t however, be complaining about the weather for a change.  It was, when we arrived here, wait for it….29 degrees.  Nice! The bus ride here from Granada was easy.  Two and a half-hours up the winding road through terrain that could have been a duplicate for BC’s interior.  Dry, with scrawny plants…

    The weather has improved!  Yes!  We had a couple of nice days, then it went back to cold and rainy.  But I think it’s turned a corner and it was nice yesterday and today.  Hot actually.  Too bad we’re leaving.  It’s been relatively quiet here after the Alhambra.  We’ve walked around town a few times, checked out the cathedrals, some monuments, and trekked up to the Sacromonte, the old (16th century) gypsy community that sits on the side of a steep hill, amid pines and cactus, overlooking the Alhambra.  Some pretty spectacular views from here.  Granada and surrounds are very pretty (when the sun is out) with a…

So today we are taking a break from the ‘touristo’ activity and I’m going to write a little about living here in general.  We thought it might be interesting and informative.  We can yak ad nauseam about the castles, churches, and graveyards, (and the hordes) but the point of the trek to elsewhere was to see what it was like to live as a local here.  Or at least try to.  We will always have one foot in both camps until we rent/buy in someplace, but we can try to be local as much as possible.     Anyone can come here on vacation, spend some money, eat out a…

    Let me get this out of the way first.  Yes, there were hordes and yes there was weather.  Cold weather as in really, really cold.  Like it snowed later, I kid you not.  And the Alhambra is an outdoor attraction. It was worth it though.  A truly amazing place; it is immense.  The palaces, terraces, and gardens built in the 1200 and 1300’s by the founder of the Nasrid dynasty, the Alhambra, literally meaning ‘red castle’, is a stunning architectural masterpiece sitting atop a hill overlooking Granada.  That the initial castle/fortress, the  Alcazaba, was built 400 years before the palaces is even more impressive.  That’s like, 1200 years…

Let’s talk about the tourists.  After I complain about the weather.  Again.  My weather app says it’s going to snow. I sound like a whiner:  Oh, it’s cold here.  Oh, it’s raining here. Oh, there are too many tourists here.  So yes I am.  Some of our friends will tell you that.  Ok, maybe all of our friends will tell you that.  Whatever.  My POINT is,  I wanted desperately to p**s off the people back home with great photos of sitting on a terrace, eating and drinking, feet up with a backdrop of endless sunny blue sky.  Not. Happening. In. Granada.  Enough about the weather for a paragraph or two….

So, we said bye bye Barcelona and hello to Granada, or more accurately, bye bye 20 degree sunshine and hello 9 degree rain and sleet.  It’s COLD here!  You would think heading 800km south would jack the temperature up a bit…maybe being next to the southern most ski resort in Europe explains a few things.  We’ve been told that it is unseasonably cold this year.  Not great planning but it gives us a chance to rest a bit, not walk 10km a day, and maybe spend time doing tax preparation.  Always my favorite thing.  Granada, from what little we’ve seen so far, is a pleasant city steeped in Moorish history. …

  Montserrat, I mean, sorry.  I was going to title this entry ‘The Hordes’ but hey, who doesn’t like a smug little play on words.  And in this case either title is appropriate.  Don’t get me wrong, as Montserrat is very high on the list of things to do when you are in Barcelona, but OMG!  Maybe we timed it badly, low season and all, but really, ‘European school day vacation, Montserrat’.  All that was missing were the Griswolds! So, Montserrat is  well known as the site of the Benedictine abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat, which hosts the Virgin of Montserrat sanctuary.  It’s a spectacular place built high up on…

  That should be part deux, but Homer says it better….doh!, here’s the stuff you expected! The most iconic face of Barcelona pictured above. Not some friggin’ graveyard! This is what you do here. Visit Gaudi’s most famous work, the Sagrada Familia. Unbelievably awesome doesn’t do it justice. You really need to see this! So today that’s what we did along with Casa Batllo and Casa Mila, Gaudi’s other city landmarks. We didn’t make it to some of the others but these 3 were enough (another 10km) for one day. It can be a bit of sensory overload. And it’s not just Gaudi you want to see. Barcelona is an…

    Visiting a graveyard might seem like a strange thing to do on a holiday, especially with so many grand sights to see.  But oh, what a graveyard!  And maybe in a way, it’s appropriate, because we’ll end up in one eventually. In the cheap seats no doubt.     Covering 56 hectares, Barcelona’s Montjuic cemetery contains over 150,000 burial plots, with around 1 million remains in burials and cremation ashes. We had planned to attend one of the free guided tours offered on Sunday mornings but ended up at the back entrance rather than the main gate. Since the cemetery is so large we were not able to…

So it’s Sunday morning and what better way to spend it than in a cemetery. Yikes! We fly all the way to Barcelona just to hang out in a graveyard! But, it’s not just any graveyard, It’s the Cementerio de Montjuic. Wow. Fantastic, Awe inspiring. Macabre. More on this later though. We’ve spent the past couple of days walking. A lot. We’re still getting over some jet lag but we arrived in one (tired) piece late afternoon Wednesday. The apartment is quite nice and central (Sants) to a lot of what Barcelona has to offer the tourist. Which is what we are. Barcelona, like a lot of big cities, can…