Andalusia | Travel Blog

Advertisement

At the Alhambra

Andalusia

Yeah I know it's been a while. We had 8 days in Andalucia in a mansion owned by a tight ass Pom who was fighting with Spanish Telstra so therefore we had no Internet. Was disaster and peace at the same time.

Anyway this blog is about what we did there, or at least the parts that I can remember.

When I was a lad I read a book by James A Michener called 'The Drifters'. It was about a group of six American twenty somethings who spent the summer bumming around Spain. In one part they came across a place called Torremolinos which was an isolated beach where they ran around naked for a couple of weeks and did rude things. Naturally then I have always wanted to go to Torremolinos so that I too could run around with naked loose twenty something American females.

James A Michener is a big fat liar!

Torremolinas and, in fact, the entire Costa De Sol is a nightmare of grand proportions. Take the worst of the Gold Coast, multiply it by a big number, and then add 15 million Poms and you may have some idea

Over Ronda

of the cheap, tawdry, chaotic, low class piece of crap real estate that is the Costa Del Sol. Never, ever, ever even contemplate going anywhere near it!

Otherwise Andalusia was really, really nice. Our place in Antequera was a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom mansion set on three acres of manicured grounds with a pool. We were centered so that we could visit Granada, Malaga, Seville, Cordoba, Ronda and a whole bunch of smaller places within an hours drive.

In Granada we saw the Alhambra, supposedly the second most visited tourist site in the world after the Taj Mahal. Actually we drove to Granada 3 times to see the Alhambra. The first time we staggered out of bed at 6 and drove to Granada to see the Alhambra. We knew we had to get there early because they only sell so many tickets a day. We didn't know that a General Strike was called for that day. The Alhambra was closed for the first time since the last General Strike so we drove home again.

The next day we staggered out of bed at 6 and drove to Granada to see the Alhambra. We knew we had

The Mezquite

to get there early because they only sell so many tickets a day. We finally got tickets for 4 in the afternoon so we drove home. At 2.30 we staggered out of bed and drove to Granada to see the Alhambra. We saw it. It was very, very good. Kinda like the Spanish version of the Forbidden city. Nonetheless we spent 9 hours in the car to spend 2 hours there and, more amazingly, it was totally worth it.

In Cordoba we went to the Mezquite. This is a mosque/cathedral started in the 8th century. Actually it makes St Peter's in Rome look like a neighborhood church. As a guesstimate I put the main building at 150m by 100m. There are over a 1000 columns inside with the obligatory fully ornate ornateness. Some twit Christian king actually put a cathedral in the middle of it and stuffed it up a lot. Apparently when the job was finished he said to his architects 'we really stuffed this up eh?' or medieval speak to the equivalent. Anyway – he was right.

Ronda. Wow. Best spot ever. Donna and I went and spent a day there and said 'Wow –

Supervising the entire balloon thing

best spot ever!' So Donna organized a balloon ride and the six of us floated over it. So cool! It sits on a ravine and on a mountain and is wonderful. Look it up on the Net if you are interested. I can't describe it adequately except that it is the best spot ever.

We also went to a lake full of flamingos, a real supermarket, little towns with good food, little towns with crappy food, the Sierra Nevadas, Mijas which is a town up really high with spectacular views and Poms, and generally had a really good time doing stuff and/or sitting around doing little.

In short we had seven days of bliss and a day on the Costa Del Sol. Now we are in Toledo with Internet. I may even blog again tomorrow!

Advertisement