Amy thought it would be fun to do a family hiking trip in the winter time this year, and so as to avoid snow and ice, she organized a trip to Spain, starting with the town of Grazalema, which is up in the mountain of Andalusia, surrounded mostly by national park land (good jumping off point for walks).
We flew Aer Lingus to Dublin, then got on a connecting flight to Malaga, and finally drove up the rest of the way (about a 2 hour drive, maybe a bit more). Travel was uneventful, although the connecting flight was pretty crowded, and I wasn't able to get any sleep, so we were pretty tired on the drive up.
We got in around 3:30 to the B+B that Amy had picked out, "La Mejorana". Smallish place with maybe a half dozen or so rooms plus a common area and dining room; seems nice and cozy. We got settled, then went for a ramble around the town to reconnoiter and to gather provisions. There are a couple of specific walks in the area that you have to have some sort of ticket to do, so we went and found the tourist information office to ask about that (turned out that they had met their quota of tickets for the following day, so we would have to check back).
Photos of the area surrounding the town:
Main square:
Street life:
Sunday:
Excellent but somewhat strenuous hike today, starting in Grazalema and heading south, making a big loop that included the two biggest nearby peaks/mountains, Simancon and Reloj. We used a hiking map borrowed from Andres, the nice fellow who runs La Mejorana; the map described the hike as "difficult" and gave it a length of 12 kilometers, which sounded ok.
The hike took us directly south along a sort of notch, then angled up to a saddle next to Simancon. We had something of a mixup there -- the kids were hiking ahead of us and wound up zooming past the turnoff to Simancon and way down into the valley. Amy and I eventually caught up to them to get them redirected, but by then I think we had added another hour or so to the hike.
The sections climbing up and over Simancon were fantastically windy; it was fairly cold as well, so we were glad to have rain jackets, hats, and gloves. It also involved a lot of scrambling (at the higher elevations there weren't really any marked trails). We eventually picked our way down the side of the mountain, then up Reloj again, and back down again to connect with the loop trail.
There were a half dozen or so other hiking groups that we ran into, but for the most part the foot traffic was fairly low. For the last section of the hike the kids had (of course) zoomed way ahead, so it was just Amy and I plodding along together for the last section of the hike -- whew.
I looked the hike up on the web afterwards and found someone who had done the same route that we did (minus our accidental hourlong detour) and according to his GPS it was around 9.5 miles (definitely not the advertised "12 kilometers"), so I felt a bit better about being tired at the end of the route. I also discovered (more or less by accident) that there had been a severe weather alert for high wind in the area while we were hiking (go figure).
Start of the hike:
An encounter with a bunch of ibex (or at least that's what we think they were):
Looking north -- the little white bob in the distance is another hill town, Zahara.
Yours truly:
At the top of Simancon (it was quite cold and blowing about 40mph up there):
Here are the kids scampering down the ridge between Simancon and Reloj (which is basically just a pile of rocks, no trail to speak of):
Amy navigating the same route:
Lunch time! Sandwiches bread, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and a sort of weird vegetable spread with azuki beans and sundried tomato (we tried for hummus but no luck).
The rock here is a mix of very hard grey stuff (with interesting ripples and textures) interspersed with deposits of softer, whiter limestoney stuff:
We spent time hanging out in the common area after the hike and before dinner; from what we could tell a bunch more guests arrived in the afternoon (I heard one of the staffers say that the place was now "at capacity").
Dinner at Restaurante Torreon. Their web site said they were open at 7, and Ethan even called them to make sure, however when we got there they told us that the kitchen was not quite ready (place was completely empty of course). They were willing to seat us regardless, so we had drinks and chatted (in spite of the warnings they did wind up taking our orders before too long). Food was basic but good. Amy and I had asparagus soup and then grilled trout -- the fish was very nice but the soup was not all that interesting. I had a glass of Spanish vino rosado, which was quite tasty.
Monday: after our exertions the previous day we decided that it would be a light hiking day today, so we picked out a shorter route that ran up around the reservoir to the north of the city. Photos:
Nice views, pleasant weather, not too much wear and tear required. We eventually split up, since each person wanted to do a different variant of the remaining hike. I found a trail that went west and did a loop back down to the town.
There are lots of little tree enclosures dotted around Grazalema; they look as though they are designed to protect baby trees from deer and goats. Many are empty but this one has a baby Pinsapar pine (rare fir tree native to the area).
In the afternoon we decided that it would be fun to explore another town, so we hopped into the car and drove to Zahara, the next substantial town to the north. Zahara is very striking -- it is on a sort of promontory overlooking a big reservoir, and it has an ancient castle up at the very top of it.
The castle:
Nice photo of Amy in front of a huge wall of flowering rosemary:
Looking out over Zahara:
The drive back from Zahara to Grazalema was especially hair-raising -- tiny roads winding their way up through the mountain, no real guard rail to speak of... quite the ride.
In the evening we enjoyed a nice meal at Meson el Simancon, which Amy had arranged ahead of time. A Spanish new years celebration involves eating a big meal and then swallowing 12 grapes at midnight, one after the other as the clock chimes in the new year... the restaurant was nice enough to provide each of us with a small bag of chocolates (yum) and the requisite number of grapes. We tried hard to hold out, but the jet lag eventually got us and we left well before midnight (it was everyone for him/herself on the grapes front).
Tuesday:
The tourist info office was closed the previous day, so we were once again stymied in our attempts to get the special "permits" for the more popular hikes. We decided instead to do a hike south from Grazalema to the neighboring town Benaocaz, and then take the bus back. There are actually two routes you can take for this journey, one more strenuous that goes through the mountains, and one on a trail that is a little less direct but is flatter and easier (it skirts around the steep stuff by curving around to the west).
We opted for the latter trail, and got started after a nice (and not too early) breakfast. We had a very pleasant first section of the hike (maybe 45 minutes) when we arrived at the start of the next trail segment and discovered this:
Yup, big sign saying "Trail closed". What's more, there was a sizable group of other hikers emerging from the gate (they had tried to ignore the "closed" sign and continue on the trail, but had discovered another set of fence with similar warnings that they couldn't get around). Hmm.
[Note: it was once again extremely handy to have a real Spanish speaker along on the trip, e.g. Ethan -- he was able to quickly get the skinny on why the trail was closed, etc]
At that point we had to improvise (situation very McIntosh-like somehow, with routes going haywire or getting extended in weird ways). There was another trail heading steeply up directly to the east, and it seemed likely that if we took it we'd be able to connect up with the other route to Benoacaz (the one we had opted against)... so we took the plunge and forged ahead.
It turned out to be another nice hike, thankfully not quite as strenuous as our first day, but definitely with plenty of mountainous terrain. Large sections of the trail ran through what is technically classified as pasture land, but fantastically rocky pasture land, very sparsely populated with cows and goats. We had a nice stop for lunch around noon or so, and this time around there were more people on the trail (which was probably a good thing, given that we were 'winging it' and didn't actually have a map to follow).
Photos:
This believe it or not was a working farmhouse at some point:
This particular group of cows made a nuisance for us -- they were busy trying graze on the section of trail that we were trying to walk through:
Wild iris:
Towards the end of the hike:
We had some time to kill before the bus arrived, so we wandered around a bit to take in the town and stopped at a bar to have a drink. It was a nice warm day at this point. Benoacaz is definitely smaller than Grazalema, not too much going on.
Eventually we wound up at the small shelter on the south side of town to wait for the bus. Interestingly, there was a Guardia (police) car with two officers sitting ten or fifteen yards from the shelter, so we watched as they sat by the side of the road and did their thing, which consisted of flagging down cars every now and then. Once the car pulled over they would do the usual "Show me your license and registration" thing, which was expected. What was a little more surprising was that they would at that point search the car -- driver had to pop the trunk and let the two police guys poke around inside. Watching this for 20 minutes made me think about how nice it is that I live in a country that has things like a 4th amendment to the constitution...
Wednesday:
This was a travel day for us. Most of us slept in-- alas, I found out later on from Amy that I had been snoring, so she got up early after being kept awake by my honking. We had the usual breakfast, returned the keys to Andres, and got packed up.
My job at that point was to go retrieve the car, which turned out to be a good deal trickier than I had thought. The previous day when we took our side trip to Zahara (on New Years Eve) after we returned to Grazalema the spot we'd used previously was occupied, so we had to wander around town looking for a place, and finally found one way up on the north side of town near the camping ground.
I walked back up there and found the car, then started driving down into the tiny city streets to try to make my way downhill to La Mejorana. Things seemed to be going OK until I came to Calle San Jose (which led to the B+B); I made very tight left turn to get onto the street down a steep section, then came around the curve and discovered that there was a van parked on the street that was too big to get around (medium-sized van + narrow alley = impassable). At that point I had to reverse my way back up the street and do my tricky tight turn (between two parked cars on a very steep section) in reverse, aaagh. I did make it without scraping the car, but partway through the exercise when I stabbed the parking brake button (the car is one of those with an electronic parking brake) it didn't disengage, so when I finished my maneuver I could smell burning break lining, very embarrassing.. the bad odor lingered for a couple of hours, reminding me of my mistake...
Luckily that turned out to be the only really stressful bit getting to Granada-- the rest of the drive was a nice adventure. We started out on the very windy mountain roads near Grazalema and as we drove along we hit successively larger and busier roads until we were finally on the 4-lane A-92 leading into Granada. Green fields all around, but with just small sprouties, nothing growing taller than a few centimeters. Enormous expanses of olive trees, covering entire hillsides as we drove along.
The Spanish driving experience seems to be a bit like my previous experiences in Italy-- standard transmission, lots of zippy/windy roads, the usual crazy mix of very slow drivers (mainly big trucks) and speed demons in their BMWs and Audis. The car was responsive and easy to drive; Amy and I both had long turns at the wheel.
The apartment that Amy picked out was in the Granada city center, quite close to the main Cathedral. Our plan was to drop off the bags around 12:30 or so and then drive the car over to a larger car park where Amy had prepaid for a couple of days of space. We found an actual parking spot on the street only about 200 meters away from the apartment (mirabile dictu!), so we grabbed it and then hoofed our way the rest of the distance.
When we got there the owner of the apartment was there, working away on cleaning the place. He didn't speak any English, so Ethan chatted with him in Spanish. I got some of what he was saying (the important bits at least), and it was clear that the previous tenant had A) checked out late, and B) left a bit of a mess-- sounds like they had decided to hold a New Year's Eve party. Reed said that he could smell smoke, maybe MJ? Amy also sniffed something along those lines. We told the owner not to worry, that we would be off to lunch and then back around 3ish.
After that we headed back to our car and made the drive to the parking garage -- this seemed easy at first, but then we ran into a road closure, so we had to circle back around a bit.
The owner of our rental had recommended a lunch place for us called Cafe Botanic ; it was very unassuming from the outside (looked like a cross between a student dining hall and a cafeteria?), but had a nice inside and turned out to have excellent food. I had a salad with fresh greens, pepitas, avocado, arugula, and mozzarella, one of the best lunch salads I've had in a while. Also ordered vegetarian quesadillas, and had a nice glass craft beer ("Menos Lobos"). Photo:
We walked back to the apartment -- it was about 3 or so by then. The owner and his wife were still frantically cleaning (I felt a bit bad for them); Ethan explained that we just needed to pick up a few things and we would be out of their hair. We grabbed our swimming trunks and then walked over to the Hamman Al Andalus for a bath. [ When Reed and Amy and I visited Sevilla last year we tried the baths in Cordoba, and we all enjoyed it, especially Reed, so we decided to do a repeat in Granada]. It was a similar setup to Cordoba, maybe a bit more crowded, but still very enjoyable. I had a couple of nice sessions in the steam room, followed by plunges into the "cold" pool -- very refreshing!
After that we walked back to the apartment one more time (owner done cleaning). We did some quick research to find local grocery stores and sallied forth (kids decided they did not want to come along). First one we tried was closed, so we had to walk a bit more, then finally found one that was open, so we bought thing for dinner.
We decided on green beans (long and flat -- "judias verdes"), asparagus, two bags of spinach, garlic, and rice. Back at the apartment Amy and I cooked the rice and veggies and then served them with a small container of leftover roast lamb (doggy bag from one of our previous dinners). A good dinner; it was nice to eat a primarily plant-based meal for a change, since the food at the restaurants is always so rich here.
The apartment itself is nice -- it is on the second floor (3rd by US reckoning), has a nice living room and decent kitchen (very sparsely equipped, but not the worst I have seen in that respect). A bunch of the furniture looks new and "Ikea-ish" -- I get the sense that this is a relatively new listing.
Thursday:
Yesterday we were so focused on the evening meal that we never did buy anything for breakfast, and when we did some more research later we found that the bakeries around here don't open until 9 or 10 (too late for our purposes), so we rousted everyone from bed at 8:15 and stumbled down to the local (recommended) Cafe Baraka for a bite before our museum expedition. Can't say I was all that impressed... sign on the door said 8:30, but it wasn't until around 8:45 that they let us in the door (the lone employee seemed to be on a cigarette break for a good portion of that). Food was not super impressive either.
Anyhow, after getting at least a little bit of fuel we headed out for the walk up the hill to the Alhambra. Very cold, around 35-37 according to the weather app; I had gloves and hat but I was still freezing. The hike uphill did warm us up a bit, but we still had to contend with the fact that there isn't really any heating in the Alhambra buildings. It seems odd that Granada would be so much colder than Grazalema, but there you have it.
We did the tour in the suggested order -- Nazrine palace, Partal, Palace of Charles the 5th, Generalife, and then the Alcabaza (fortress). They were all interesting except possibly the Palace of Charles the 5th, which I found be truly awful. The plaster carving, stonework, and wood ceiling in the Nazrine palace area was fabulous, and the views from Generalife and Alcazaba were amazing. Good stuff! It was still very cold for the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the walk, but things gradually warmed up so that we weren't shivering by the time we finally exited the fortress.
Crowded but not quite as bad as it could have been. There were many Asian tourists there (mostly in large groups), and I heard a lot of Russian being spoken.
The side of the Palace of Charles the 5th; very coarse/brutalist (especially compared to the lovely architecture in the Nazrine):
View from Generalife:
Quite a visit -- definitely worth including!
For lunch we decided to try another of the recommendations of the apartment owner, ArrocerÃa Maese Pio, which was right in the area. All of us ordered paella -- Ethan and I shared a leek & shrimp variant; Amy and Reed went with a vegetable variant.
It was all very tasty, another hit food-wise. We also stopped at various places along the way to shop for breakfast stuff for the next day.
We did a little grocery shopping in the afternoon (mainly buying breakfast stuff), then went back to the apartment for a bit of down time. After that we headed out on a shopping expedition -- Reed wanted to try one of the stores that we'd visited the last time we were in Spain, so we spent some time looking at the map and eventually figured out where the main shopping district was. The four of us sallied out to explore and (possibly) to shop. Reed did wind up buying a new shirt, and Ethan found a new bathing suit at the local Decathlon (a chain that still exists in Europe, in spite of having closed up in the US).
Dinner after that was a mixed bag -- after reading a lot of reviews we decided to try "Bar Poe" (a 10 minute walk or so to the south of our apartment), but when we got there it was locked up tight with a sign saying that they were closed for a couple of days (bummer). We wandered for a while and eventually wound up at a bar called "Milagros Irreverente", which was maybe a bit too much bar and not enough cafe-- we had a few things to eat there but nothing very memorable.
Friday:
We had breakfast with our previously purchased provisions (fruit and pastries) and then checked out of the apartment and schlepped our stuff back over to the car park. The drive getting out of Granada and down to Malaga was pretty easy, no major complications to speak of. Interesting shot along the way -- road signs on the highway in Spanish and Arabic (!?):
Amy had booked us into a hotel very close to the main train station; it was sleek and modern and a nice change from the other places we had been at (it also had a decent fitness room, yay). After some cogitation Amy + Ethan + I decide to go on a bike tour, and Reed opted in favor of staying at the hotel to get in a longer workout session. We grabbed lunch at an outdoor cafe not too far from the train station (slightly weird sandwiches), then we split up and went our different ways. Amy and Ethan and I walked over to the old town to connect with the bike tour folks.
Our tour guide turned out to be a young woman named Monique from the Netherlands -- she had started her career as an HR rep of some sort, got fed up with that, went on a series of travels to Spain, and decided she really liked in in Malaga. The bike tour was fun -- some (very) small bits of history about the town, views of various key buildings, a bit of restaurant and bar "surveillance", and then an extended ride down along the beach to one of the nearby fishing "villages". Weather was perfect for biking, maybe 60F or a little cooler, nice sunshine, not very breezy. The coastline is lovely, and it seems that the city has done a lot of renovation of the wharf and port area-- tons of people walking about, with scads of outdoor cafes, bars, and restaurants.
Our guide apparently had a significant interest in Antonio Banderas (the actor), and was careful to point out a variety of landmarks and items that had some connection to him; he was born in Malaga and seems to have maintained strong ties to the city and to its Malaguenos. We also visited the birthplace of Pablo Picasso, and heard a bit about his history with the city. Malaga has a hilltop fortress thing (similar to the Alhambra in Granada but much smaller), and also a smallish Roman theater (not in great condition but still worth seeing). In the square adjacent to the ruined theater there was an interesting little glassed over pavilion where you could look down into the archaeological dig below the street level. Apparently they had done some excavating there in hopes of uncovering an old fountain, but instead discovered an enormous expanse of stone/masonry pits and vats -- these had been used for making of the Roman condiment "garum" (which is basically fermented fish guts). Roman-era Malaga must have been a mighty stinky place :-). We quizzed Monique about what the tourist "schedule" was like for Malaga -- it sounds as though they get tourists visiting pretty much year round, without any particularly busy time of year (this is mildly surprising given that it's supposed to be fiendishly hot in the summertime, but I suppose there are people from cooler countries that want to visit around then). Photos:
Start of the bike tour, down by the wharf:
I believe this is a shot of city hall?
Old fort overlooking Roman theater:
The house in which Picasso grew up:
En route. Paving stones in the Malaga city center are all nice and smooth:
View of the cathedral:
Biking along the beach path:
Looking back towards Malaga from a few miles to the east:
The harbor, which is gleaming and new (city has done a lot of work recently to redo it):
The tour took about three hours; when it finished up we made a beeline for one of the cafes that we've ridden by earlier in the afternoon -- Casa Aranda. It had been deserted when we'd first seen it, but it was now completely overrun with people. We snagged a table, then ordered the critical commodities: a plate of churros and three cups of chocolate. A fabulous treat -- the chocolate was lovely and thick, and the churros were about the best I have ever tasted (very fresh). We ordered some to go for Reed (who was still working out) -- the "to go" chocolate came in a cool-looking little plastic pot with a handle.
The ride had been at a fairly leisurely pace, so after we got back to the hotel Amy and I had a session in the fitness room, which was not too bad (weird lighting, but a good selection of machines). When dinner time rolled around Amy and I were kind of tired of walking, so we decided to just eat in the hotel restaurant, which was fine (maybe a bit fancier than we needed).
In the morning we did the hotel breakfast, which was excellent (lots of things to choose from). The muesli/cereal area had a bunch of interesting tidbits to put in your bowl, including cacao nibs and a small put of yellow nodules billed as "pollen" :-).
Getting to the airport was very easy, no hassles to speak of, thank goodness.
It was a fun trip overall, a nice break from the snowy weather with plenty of hiking and other outdoor time. As always after trips like these I have been daydreaming of big pans full of green vegetables, salads, pots of brown rice, and nice spicy things with hot peppers :-).
Excellent but somewhat strenuous hike today, starting in Grazalema and heading south, making a big loop that included the two biggest nearby peaks/mountains, Simancon and Reloj. We used a hiking map borrowed from Andres, the nice fellow who runs La Mejorana; the map described the hike as "difficult" and gave it a length of 12 kilometers, which sounded ok.
The hike took us directly south along a sort of notch, then angled up to a saddle next to Simancon. We had something of a mixup there -- the kids were hiking ahead of us and wound up zooming past the turnoff to Simancon and way down into the valley. Amy and I eventually caught up to them to get them redirected, but by then I think we had added another hour or so to the hike.
The sections climbing up and over Simancon were fantastically windy; it was fairly cold as well, so we were glad to have rain jackets, hats, and gloves. It also involved a lot of scrambling (at the higher elevations there weren't really any marked trails). We eventually picked our way down the side of the mountain, then up Reloj again, and back down again to connect with the loop trail.
There were a half dozen or so other hiking groups that we ran into, but for the most part the foot traffic was fairly low. For the last section of the hike the kids had (of course) zoomed way ahead, so it was just Amy and I plodding along together for the last section of the hike -- whew.
I looked the hike up on the web afterwards and found someone who had done the same route that we did (minus our accidental hourlong detour) and according to his GPS it was around 9.5 miles (definitely not the advertised "12 kilometers"), so I felt a bit better about being tired at the end of the route. I also discovered (more or less by accident) that there had been a severe weather alert for high wind in the area while we were hiking (go figure).
Start of the hike:
An encounter with a bunch of ibex (or at least that's what we think they were):
Looking north -- the little white bob in the distance is another hill town, Zahara.
Yours truly:
At the top of Simancon (it was quite cold and blowing about 40mph up there):
Here are the kids scampering down the ridge between Simancon and Reloj (which is basically just a pile of rocks, no trail to speak of):
Amy navigating the same route:
Lunch time! Sandwiches bread, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and a sort of weird vegetable spread with azuki beans and sundried tomato (we tried for hummus but no luck).
The rock here is a mix of very hard grey stuff (with interesting ripples and textures) interspersed with deposits of softer, whiter limestoney stuff:
We spent time hanging out in the common area after the hike and before dinner; from what we could tell a bunch more guests arrived in the afternoon (I heard one of the staffers say that the place was now "at capacity").
Dinner at Restaurante Torreon. Their web site said they were open at 7, and Ethan even called them to make sure, however when we got there they told us that the kitchen was not quite ready (place was completely empty of course). They were willing to seat us regardless, so we had drinks and chatted (in spite of the warnings they did wind up taking our orders before too long). Food was basic but good. Amy and I had asparagus soup and then grilled trout -- the fish was very nice but the soup was not all that interesting. I had a glass of Spanish vino rosado, which was quite tasty.
Monday: after our exertions the previous day we decided that it would be a light hiking day today, so we picked out a shorter route that ran up around the reservoir to the north of the city. Photos:
Nice views, pleasant weather, not too much wear and tear required. We eventually split up, since each person wanted to do a different variant of the remaining hike. I found a trail that went west and did a loop back down to the town.
There are lots of little tree enclosures dotted around Grazalema; they look as though they are designed to protect baby trees from deer and goats. Many are empty but this one has a baby Pinsapar pine (rare fir tree native to the area).
The castle:
Nice photo of Amy in front of a huge wall of flowering rosemary:
Looking out over Zahara:
The drive back from Zahara to Grazalema was especially hair-raising -- tiny roads winding their way up through the mountain, no real guard rail to speak of... quite the ride.
In the evening we enjoyed a nice meal at Meson el Simancon, which Amy had arranged ahead of time. A Spanish new years celebration involves eating a big meal and then swallowing 12 grapes at midnight, one after the other as the clock chimes in the new year... the restaurant was nice enough to provide each of us with a small bag of chocolates (yum) and the requisite number of grapes. We tried hard to hold out, but the jet lag eventually got us and we left well before midnight (it was everyone for him/herself on the grapes front).
Tuesday:
The tourist info office was closed the previous day, so we were once again stymied in our attempts to get the special "permits" for the more popular hikes. We decided instead to do a hike south from Grazalema to the neighboring town Benaocaz, and then take the bus back. There are actually two routes you can take for this journey, one more strenuous that goes through the mountains, and one on a trail that is a little less direct but is flatter and easier (it skirts around the steep stuff by curving around to the west).
We opted for the latter trail, and got started after a nice (and not too early) breakfast. We had a very pleasant first section of the hike (maybe 45 minutes) when we arrived at the start of the next trail segment and discovered this:
Yup, big sign saying "Trail closed". What's more, there was a sizable group of other hikers emerging from the gate (they had tried to ignore the "closed" sign and continue on the trail, but had discovered another set of fence with similar warnings that they couldn't get around). Hmm.
[Note: it was once again extremely handy to have a real Spanish speaker along on the trip, e.g. Ethan -- he was able to quickly get the skinny on why the trail was closed, etc]
At that point we had to improvise (situation very McIntosh-like somehow, with routes going haywire or getting extended in weird ways). There was another trail heading steeply up directly to the east, and it seemed likely that if we took it we'd be able to connect up with the other route to Benoacaz (the one we had opted against)... so we took the plunge and forged ahead.
It turned out to be another nice hike, thankfully not quite as strenuous as our first day, but definitely with plenty of mountainous terrain. Large sections of the trail ran through what is technically classified as pasture land, but fantastically rocky pasture land, very sparsely populated with cows and goats. We had a nice stop for lunch around noon or so, and this time around there were more people on the trail (which was probably a good thing, given that we were 'winging it' and didn't actually have a map to follow).
Photos:
This believe it or not was a working farmhouse at some point:
This particular group of cows made a nuisance for us -- they were busy trying graze on the section of trail that we were trying to walk through:
Wild iris:
Towards the end of the hike:
We had some time to kill before the bus arrived, so we wandered around a bit to take in the town and stopped at a bar to have a drink. It was a nice warm day at this point. Benoacaz is definitely smaller than Grazalema, not too much going on.
Eventually we wound up at the small shelter on the south side of town to wait for the bus. Interestingly, there was a Guardia (police) car with two officers sitting ten or fifteen yards from the shelter, so we watched as they sat by the side of the road and did their thing, which consisted of flagging down cars every now and then. Once the car pulled over they would do the usual "Show me your license and registration" thing, which was expected. What was a little more surprising was that they would at that point search the car -- driver had to pop the trunk and let the two police guys poke around inside. Watching this for 20 minutes made me think about how nice it is that I live in a country that has things like a 4th amendment to the constitution...
Wednesday:
This was a travel day for us. Most of us slept in-- alas, I found out later on from Amy that I had been snoring, so she got up early after being kept awake by my honking. We had the usual breakfast, returned the keys to Andres, and got packed up.
My job at that point was to go retrieve the car, which turned out to be a good deal trickier than I had thought. The previous day when we took our side trip to Zahara (on New Years Eve) after we returned to Grazalema the spot we'd used previously was occupied, so we had to wander around town looking for a place, and finally found one way up on the north side of town near the camping ground.
I walked back up there and found the car, then started driving down into the tiny city streets to try to make my way downhill to La Mejorana. Things seemed to be going OK until I came to Calle San Jose (which led to the B+B); I made very tight left turn to get onto the street down a steep section, then came around the curve and discovered that there was a van parked on the street that was too big to get around (medium-sized van + narrow alley = impassable). At that point I had to reverse my way back up the street and do my tricky tight turn (between two parked cars on a very steep section) in reverse, aaagh. I did make it without scraping the car, but partway through the exercise when I stabbed the parking brake button (the car is one of those with an electronic parking brake) it didn't disengage, so when I finished my maneuver I could smell burning break lining, very embarrassing.. the bad odor lingered for a couple of hours, reminding me of my mistake...
Luckily that turned out to be the only really stressful bit getting to Granada-- the rest of the drive was a nice adventure. We started out on the very windy mountain roads near Grazalema and as we drove along we hit successively larger and busier roads until we were finally on the 4-lane A-92 leading into Granada. Green fields all around, but with just small sprouties, nothing growing taller than a few centimeters. Enormous expanses of olive trees, covering entire hillsides as we drove along.
The Spanish driving experience seems to be a bit like my previous experiences in Italy-- standard transmission, lots of zippy/windy roads, the usual crazy mix of very slow drivers (mainly big trucks) and speed demons in their BMWs and Audis. The car was responsive and easy to drive; Amy and I both had long turns at the wheel.
The apartment that Amy picked out was in the Granada city center, quite close to the main Cathedral. Our plan was to drop off the bags around 12:30 or so and then drive the car over to a larger car park where Amy had prepaid for a couple of days of space. We found an actual parking spot on the street only about 200 meters away from the apartment (mirabile dictu!), so we grabbed it and then hoofed our way the rest of the distance.
When we got there the owner of the apartment was there, working away on cleaning the place. He didn't speak any English, so Ethan chatted with him in Spanish. I got some of what he was saying (the important bits at least), and it was clear that the previous tenant had A) checked out late, and B) left a bit of a mess-- sounds like they had decided to hold a New Year's Eve party. Reed said that he could smell smoke, maybe MJ? Amy also sniffed something along those lines. We told the owner not to worry, that we would be off to lunch and then back around 3ish.
After that we headed back to our car and made the drive to the parking garage -- this seemed easy at first, but then we ran into a road closure, so we had to circle back around a bit.
The owner of our rental had recommended a lunch place for us called Cafe Botanic ; it was very unassuming from the outside (looked like a cross between a student dining hall and a cafeteria?), but had a nice inside and turned out to have excellent food. I had a salad with fresh greens, pepitas, avocado, arugula, and mozzarella, one of the best lunch salads I've had in a while. Also ordered vegetarian quesadillas, and had a nice glass craft beer ("Menos Lobos"). Photo:
We walked back to the apartment -- it was about 3 or so by then. The owner and his wife were still frantically cleaning (I felt a bit bad for them); Ethan explained that we just needed to pick up a few things and we would be out of their hair. We grabbed our swimming trunks and then walked over to the Hamman Al Andalus for a bath. [ When Reed and Amy and I visited Sevilla last year we tried the baths in Cordoba, and we all enjoyed it, especially Reed, so we decided to do a repeat in Granada]. It was a similar setup to Cordoba, maybe a bit more crowded, but still very enjoyable. I had a couple of nice sessions in the steam room, followed by plunges into the "cold" pool -- very refreshing!
After that we walked back to the apartment one more time (owner done cleaning). We did some quick research to find local grocery stores and sallied forth (kids decided they did not want to come along). First one we tried was closed, so we had to walk a bit more, then finally found one that was open, so we bought thing for dinner.
We decided on green beans (long and flat -- "judias verdes"), asparagus, two bags of spinach, garlic, and rice. Back at the apartment Amy and I cooked the rice and veggies and then served them with a small container of leftover roast lamb (doggy bag from one of our previous dinners). A good dinner; it was nice to eat a primarily plant-based meal for a change, since the food at the restaurants is always so rich here.
The apartment itself is nice -- it is on the second floor (3rd by US reckoning), has a nice living room and decent kitchen (very sparsely equipped, but not the worst I have seen in that respect). A bunch of the furniture looks new and "Ikea-ish" -- I get the sense that this is a relatively new listing.
Thursday:
Yesterday we were so focused on the evening meal that we never did buy anything for breakfast, and when we did some more research later we found that the bakeries around here don't open until 9 or 10 (too late for our purposes), so we rousted everyone from bed at 8:15 and stumbled down to the local (recommended) Cafe Baraka for a bite before our museum expedition. Can't say I was all that impressed... sign on the door said 8:30, but it wasn't until around 8:45 that they let us in the door (the lone employee seemed to be on a cigarette break for a good portion of that). Food was not super impressive either.
Anyhow, after getting at least a little bit of fuel we headed out for the walk up the hill to the Alhambra. Very cold, around 35-37 according to the weather app; I had gloves and hat but I was still freezing. The hike uphill did warm us up a bit, but we still had to contend with the fact that there isn't really any heating in the Alhambra buildings. It seems odd that Granada would be so much colder than Grazalema, but there you have it.
We did the tour in the suggested order -- Nazrine palace, Partal, Palace of Charles the 5th, Generalife, and then the Alcabaza (fortress). They were all interesting except possibly the Palace of Charles the 5th, which I found be truly awful. The plaster carving, stonework, and wood ceiling in the Nazrine palace area was fabulous, and the views from Generalife and Alcazaba were amazing. Good stuff! It was still very cold for the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the walk, but things gradually warmed up so that we weren't shivering by the time we finally exited the fortress.
Crowded but not quite as bad as it could have been. There were many Asian tourists there (mostly in large groups), and I heard a lot of Russian being spoken.
The side of the Palace of Charles the 5th; very coarse/brutalist (especially compared to the lovely architecture in the Nazrine):
View from Generalife:
Quite a visit -- definitely worth including!
For lunch we decided to try another of the recommendations of the apartment owner, ArrocerÃa Maese Pio, which was right in the area. All of us ordered paella -- Ethan and I shared a leek & shrimp variant; Amy and Reed went with a vegetable variant.
It was all very tasty, another hit food-wise. We also stopped at various places along the way to shop for breakfast stuff for the next day.
We did a little grocery shopping in the afternoon (mainly buying breakfast stuff), then went back to the apartment for a bit of down time. After that we headed out on a shopping expedition -- Reed wanted to try one of the stores that we'd visited the last time we were in Spain, so we spent some time looking at the map and eventually figured out where the main shopping district was. The four of us sallied out to explore and (possibly) to shop. Reed did wind up buying a new shirt, and Ethan found a new bathing suit at the local Decathlon (a chain that still exists in Europe, in spite of having closed up in the US).
Dinner after that was a mixed bag -- after reading a lot of reviews we decided to try "Bar Poe" (a 10 minute walk or so to the south of our apartment), but when we got there it was locked up tight with a sign saying that they were closed for a couple of days (bummer). We wandered for a while and eventually wound up at a bar called "Milagros Irreverente", which was maybe a bit too much bar and not enough cafe-- we had a few things to eat there but nothing very memorable.
Friday:
We had breakfast with our previously purchased provisions (fruit and pastries) and then checked out of the apartment and schlepped our stuff back over to the car park. The drive getting out of Granada and down to Malaga was pretty easy, no major complications to speak of. Interesting shot along the way -- road signs on the highway in Spanish and Arabic (!?):
Amy had booked us into a hotel very close to the main train station; it was sleek and modern and a nice change from the other places we had been at (it also had a decent fitness room, yay). After some cogitation Amy + Ethan + I decide to go on a bike tour, and Reed opted in favor of staying at the hotel to get in a longer workout session. We grabbed lunch at an outdoor cafe not too far from the train station (slightly weird sandwiches), then we split up and went our different ways. Amy and Ethan and I walked over to the old town to connect with the bike tour folks.
Our tour guide turned out to be a young woman named Monique from the Netherlands -- she had started her career as an HR rep of some sort, got fed up with that, went on a series of travels to Spain, and decided she really liked in in Malaga. The bike tour was fun -- some (very) small bits of history about the town, views of various key buildings, a bit of restaurant and bar "surveillance", and then an extended ride down along the beach to one of the nearby fishing "villages". Weather was perfect for biking, maybe 60F or a little cooler, nice sunshine, not very breezy. The coastline is lovely, and it seems that the city has done a lot of renovation of the wharf and port area-- tons of people walking about, with scads of outdoor cafes, bars, and restaurants.
Our guide apparently had a significant interest in Antonio Banderas (the actor), and was careful to point out a variety of landmarks and items that had some connection to him; he was born in Malaga and seems to have maintained strong ties to the city and to its Malaguenos. We also visited the birthplace of Pablo Picasso, and heard a bit about his history with the city. Malaga has a hilltop fortress thing (similar to the Alhambra in Granada but much smaller), and also a smallish Roman theater (not in great condition but still worth seeing). In the square adjacent to the ruined theater there was an interesting little glassed over pavilion where you could look down into the archaeological dig below the street level. Apparently they had done some excavating there in hopes of uncovering an old fountain, but instead discovered an enormous expanse of stone/masonry pits and vats -- these had been used for making of the Roman condiment "garum" (which is basically fermented fish guts). Roman-era Malaga must have been a mighty stinky place :-). We quizzed Monique about what the tourist "schedule" was like for Malaga -- it sounds as though they get tourists visiting pretty much year round, without any particularly busy time of year (this is mildly surprising given that it's supposed to be fiendishly hot in the summertime, but I suppose there are people from cooler countries that want to visit around then). Photos:
Start of the bike tour, down by the wharf:
I believe this is a shot of city hall?
Old fort overlooking Roman theater:
The house in which Picasso grew up:
En route. Paving stones in the Malaga city center are all nice and smooth:
View of the cathedral:
Biking along the beach path:
Looking back towards Malaga from a few miles to the east:
The harbor, which is gleaming and new (city has done a lot of work recently to redo it):
The tour took about three hours; when it finished up we made a beeline for one of the cafes that we've ridden by earlier in the afternoon -- Casa Aranda. It had been deserted when we'd first seen it, but it was now completely overrun with people. We snagged a table, then ordered the critical commodities: a plate of churros and three cups of chocolate. A fabulous treat -- the chocolate was lovely and thick, and the churros were about the best I have ever tasted (very fresh). We ordered some to go for Reed (who was still working out) -- the "to go" chocolate came in a cool-looking little plastic pot with a handle.
The ride had been at a fairly leisurely pace, so after we got back to the hotel Amy and I had a session in the fitness room, which was not too bad (weird lighting, but a good selection of machines). When dinner time rolled around Amy and I were kind of tired of walking, so we decided to just eat in the hotel restaurant, which was fine (maybe a bit fancier than we needed).
In the morning we did the hotel breakfast, which was excellent (lots of things to choose from). The muesli/cereal area had a bunch of interesting tidbits to put in your bowl, including cacao nibs and a small put of yellow nodules billed as "pollen" :-).
Getting to the airport was very easy, no hassles to speak of, thank goodness.
It was a fun trip overall, a nice break from the snowy weather with plenty of hiking and other outdoor time. As always after trips like these I have been daydreaming of big pans full of green vegetables, salads, pots of brown rice, and nice spicy things with hot peppers :-).
