Jen and Rebecca Lose Their Way (About 5 Times in One Day)

Our plan was to leave Malaga early (well….early-ish) so that we would have several hours to explore the Alhambra and Granada. After all, the guidebooks say to allow 4 hours for leisurely exploration of the vast grounds. The GPS gods, however, had other ideas. We took a few wrong turns before we even made it out of the city. Thankfully, the rented tablet has Google maps and we were able to correct our mistakes relatively quickly. The rest of the drive went well until we missed our turn to the Granada city center. It didn’t take us too long to work our way back, but we came into the city from a slightly different direction than anticipated and gave up on our planned route and pulled into the first available public parking structure.

At which point we left our primary GPS source in the car and figured that a giant monument at the top of a hill couldn’t possibly be that hard to find without specific directions. The Granada city planners were apparently pretty evil, however, and we wound through many streets with nary a glimpse of the Alhambra in our attempt to find it. We finally got out the cell phone and used some of our precious international data plan to try to map our way to the entrance. Sadly, Rebecca only had Apple maps on her phone and the next hour was reminiscent of that one time in Zagreb when Apple maps took us to the tarmac of the airport instead of the front entrance. In Granada, we ended up climbing steep, deserted streets with no real sense that we were going the right direction other than the somewhat false affirmation of Apple’s blue dot. We did eventually reach the main entrance, but it was more by luck than anything else.

Somehow this isn't visible from the city center.

At this point, our legs were already sore and we were starving, but our tickets were only good until 2 pm. There was a lot to see in just under 3 hours! We started out at the palace of Carlos V. The existing palace wasn’t good enough for him, so he built a new one. It was square on the outside, but had a circular courtyard inside. He definitely had his own style. Next up was the Alcazar. There wasn’t much to see inside, but the towers had some great views of the Alhambra and the city. After a mediocre quick lunch, we got into the Palace at our appointed ticket time, and this was really the highlight of the Alhambra visit. There were a lot of intricately carved walls and ceilings that were jaw-droppingly impressive. Plus the Muslims really knew how to use pretty reflecting pools and plants to great effect.

Intricate arches with so-called stalactite ceilings

We lucked out and the ticket taker let us into the Generalife Gardens at 2:15, even though our tickets were set to expire at 2:00. All in all, we saw the entire Alhambra (including the original burial chapel of Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand) in about 3.5 hours. To be on the safe side, we Apple mapped our path back down to the city and amazingly found our Segway tour meeting point in short order, with only one missed turn. We figured since we only had one day in Granada, we’d be able to hit more of the highlights on Segways than on foot. And at this point in the day after our directional mishaps, our legs would have been way too tired to manage a walking tour of the city.

Pretty reflecting pool reflecting the throngs of tourists

Turns out Anna’s Wii-Fit balance training makes her a rock star at the Segway. Rebecca did pretty decently and Jen only crashed once. But we were wearing helmets and yellow safety vests, so we were safe as kittens. The Segways had thick tires to handle Granada’s cobblestones and steep hills. It was pretty fun once we got the hang of it! We saw some nice views overlooking the Alhambra and got some not-long-enough-for-us-history-nerds tour guide descriptions of the city and its inhabitants. We were a little worried about our ability to find our parked car at the end of the adventure, but a map acquired at the tour company made things mostly clear to us, and after a quick pit stop to see the city’s cathedral (because, come on, it’s a church!) we managed to get out of Granada in one piece. Though the drivers in Spain are mainly insane. For realisies.

Look ma, we're balancing on Segways!

We decided earlier in the day to take the southerly route back to Malaga and have dinner on the Costa del Sol. Nerja was theoretically only an hour away from Granada, but somehow, we managed to exit the A44 (Spain’s interstate) and ended up on a windy two-lane highway. Since it was the 4th time today that we had gotten turned around, it was more funny than frustrating. We corrected the route soon enough and had dinner in Nerja on the so-called “Balcony of Europe”. The view of the Mediterranean in the pitch dark left a little to be desired, but it was nice to wander through a quiet seaside town and have dinner (Italian again, for convenience’s sake) with the sound of the surf below. Sadly, we got lost yet one more time trying to find our car because we got cute and decided not to just retrace our steps in order to see more of the town. Oops. But with nthe aid of a Rick Steves guidebook back and Jen's inner blue dot, we found the car without GPS! Good thing Malaga was less than an hour away. We were tired (and tired of getting lost!) by this point in the evening! But we enjoyed the day anyway.