Ok so it's been a long time now since Granada but here's the rest of my experience in the fair city.
Granada is geographicaly a hard city to get around on foot. It's hilly, it get's hot easily. Even in Feb - by the middle of the day we were pretty hot. However there are plenty of bus routes you can take that makes visiting the various different places of interest easier. Our first stop in Granada was the the main square where we were told at the hostel that an American guy runs walking tours of the city starting at the fountain at 11.00am. We got there a few minutes before and the fountain wasn't running. Soon there was a young looking guy standing around with a leaflet held up in the air. We walked over and gradually a few others joined. We waited and talked a little - there were 3 other Americans and an Australian. The tour guide had been one of those never ending travellers who had come to Granada to study a little and decided he liked it so much he stayed. He'd discovered there were no walking tours offered to tourists so had decided to start one himself. The fountain was turned on and he takes this as his sign that no one else is going to show so we the small band of tourists set off.
Luckily for us our guide was not an average Joe. He had majored in Theatre and had literary and artistic tendencies. This, I'm pleased to say, was all incoorated in our tour. Whilst relaying certain interesting historical facts about Granada we were all invited to 'step back in time' in a certain impro, drama type way. As in we were invited to make funny noises and wave our arms around. If you're into something a little bit different (as I am) then this walking tour is definitely reccomended. We spent about 2 hours walking all over Granada, entertained and informed whilst also orientating ourselves.
The guy worked for tips and he took us to the best place with a view to get us to give. Believe me - no problem paying the guy. Completely reasonable rates and an excellent tour. Afterwards he invited everyone to go and have lunch together at some places he knew. Unfortunately, my American friend and I had a date with the Alhambra.
The Palace and grounds are weirdly marketed. They are separate areas to visit with different prices from free to expensive. Inside is what you have to book tickets for to gurantee your visit. On these tickets they give you specific times to go. Either a morning time or afternoon. However when we arrived at our aloted time, the wardens kept on asking for another time that was supposed to be our appointment. To this day I do not know what they were on about. It didn't seem to matter anyway. There was a long line to get into the Palace and once inside I was actually quite disapointed. The rooms we were directed through were fabulously old but there was no information anywhere about the rooms. All these questions kept on popping into my head like 'when was this built?' 'What was this room used for?' 'What King used this?' After a while I got so annoyed that I just started making up the answers myself.
I suggest you spend the extra money on an audio guide. As a British tourist I expect information on the place I'm visiting included in the price of visiting. And whilst the architecutre was fabulous and the gardens amazing to walk round, I just felt disapointed at not actually learning anything about what I had just been seeing. My American friend didn't seem to mind though.
We had also been tipped off at the hostel of a fabulous Flamenco and Dinner show up in the Sacremento hills. Apparently the stage had a backdrop of a window that looked out onto the Alhambra lit up at night. After a freshen up and quick nap, a group of us from the hostel decided to trek up there to it. However we were advised to arrive at a certain time to get tickets, we didn't. We got slightly lost and once we had arived after a long and arduous walk up a never ending hill, we were told that it had allready started and there were no tickets left. Well, eventually were told that by an unfriendly hilltop barman. There were alot of small groups of people hanging around, attempting to open slightly invisible locked doors. No one really knew what was going on and all seemed a bit lost even at the supposed destination.
We slunk back down to Granada central in two different taxis and miraculously met up again in a famed tapas bar just off the highstreet. There we had lots of lovely wine from a generous selection and of course, tapas. The place was packed with fabulously looking people. I was, in my backpacking I don't give **** how I look gear, slightly underdressed. But I didn't care. The high density of people just proved the brilliant atmosphere in the place and I was lapping it up. After the tapas, a girl in group decided that her boyfriend was at a much better place so dragged us all off there. Only she didn't know exactly where it was and again, we all got a bit lost. We eventually settled on a retro looking bar to sit down at. But by this time all the walking had taken it's toll and I was titbit tired.
I headed off to Hostel (proud of myself for finding it all by myself in the dark) and fell into bed to slumber well. The beds at the hostel were extremely comfortable even though the matresses were from Ikea.
Sunday coming up in Part 3
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