We arrived, found the local bus to our hotel, rested a bit, and then headed out to do some exploring. We were going to La Alhambra tomorrow morning so today was the bits and pieces day. Granada was the last stronghold of the Moors when the Catholics took over so there is a lot of Muslim influence in the architecture and food while still definitely being a Spanish town. We roamed some back streets and ultimately ended up at the great cathedral. This was the first one that S & C had seen so they were very impressed. It was gorgeous and certainly was every bit as interesting as the others I had seen around Madrid.
Another adventure for this day was to attend a Flaminco Show in the cave district. Rather than just going to the University for their performance, we decided to be tourists for a change. That meant we got picked up by a bus, given a walking tour of the area so we could see Alhambra at night, a drink in the show, and a ride home. Although we really didn't like being tourists this was pretty spectacular. We were lined up against the walls of a small cave and the Spanish crowd was very excited. They were singing and dancing themselves prior to the performance. If only we had known the songs so we could have joined in. Setare was cheering and laughing the whole time. Then the performances were in two blocks. We think it was the younger upstarts in the first group of three and then the older, more experienced dancers in the second group to perform. They were all very spectacular! The first group was very serious and the second group smiled, laughed, and even stopped to say "thank you" when some one in the crowd said "whapa!" Although I'm probably spelling it wrong, I believe the word means "beautiful!" What a fun night!
Sunday morning we headed off to La Alhambra -- spending about 4 hours walking around the grounds, seeing the old fortress, the gardens, the general living areas, and ending with the palace. It was probably a bit of a let down for Setare since she has seen many beautiful places in Iran when she has visited there in the past. But, it was still very interesting (but hot). When we returned we rested and decided to go out of Moroccan food since we were getting very tired of tapas. Tapas are served free with a beer but we wanted a real meal. We weren't disappointed -- two different chicken dishes, couscous, vegetables, and wonderful mint tea. Unfortunately, however, it made us arrive at the free classical piano concert we had come upon too late so we couldn't attend. Since Granada was having a special arts festival with many free performances, we decided to walk to a different one that was contemporary modern dance starting at 10 p.m. Of course, we got lost and finally found a lovely french/spanish couple that were out taking a walk who helped us find our way to the venue. Cody started trying his Spanish more and they were wonderfully helpful. Later I saw that they decided to come to the program as well. It was very good -- although a little hard for us to understand since we couldn't read the program to understand the symbolic meaning of the movements. Still..., we enjoyed it.
The final day in Granada was a bit low key. I think we were all ready to get back to Alicante yet the bus was not leaving till 5 p.m. We walked around, bought a few souvenirs, looked at more architecture, stopped at the bull ring, and got to the bus station. About that time, however, Cody noticed that we had a small problem with our bus tickets. When we were booking them on line we apparently had not changed the date for the return form the arrival and our tickets were for two days earlier. They wouldn't exchange them and there were no seats on this or the next two buses so we bought tickets for the 3 a.m. ride arriving in Alicante at 9 a.m. (Just in time for me to make it to my class). After doing some grading in the train station, we took the city bus back into town and found a nice place to have dinner. Tried to make another classical musical performance but this one was full within 5 minutes of ticket availability (we arrived at 8 minutes after). So I guess we weren't supposed to hear music on this trip. We walked to another venue that was in a park with 3 young gymnasts who were doing an avant garde performance. Interesting.
Finally we headed back to the bus station and made sure that we didn't miss this bus. Clearly, we were resourceful, though. Everyone stayed calm and we made the best of a confusing error. Cody and Setare are fun to travel with because they are so easy going--and they love Alicante!
No comments:
Post a Comment