Shouting from the Hop

My wife took me to Granada in Spain for my birthday a couple of weeks back.

We have been to Spian quite a few times now; mainly Madrid, which we love, but also to many of the towns within a train ride of Madrid, and to Seville, like Granada, also in the South of the country.

Sadly, getting there was quite painful. We left home at 9am, getting a cab to Heathrow, and arriving at 10.20 for our 1pm flight. We checked in, shopped, had brunch, and made our way to our gate. We boarded our plane, and then the pilot said that there would be a slight delay (maybe 40 minutes, most of which we could make up due to a tail wind) due to traffic congestion. Eventually, we taxied out toward the runway. Then we hit problems; a technical fault meant the pilot would not take off, so we returned to a service area. Eventually, an engineer looked at the problem but could not fix it. We had been on board for two hours by now... The pilot told the plane that there was a replacement available, and he would arrange buses to take us across to it. Then, later, he said that we would actually have to go via the terminal, but we should all make our way directly to gate 41. We were on board the plane for over three hours and didn't go anywhere! We had to go through security again too, so all the liquids (coke, water etc) that we had bought airside for the flight had to be dumped. As we neared the gate, we saw some of the other passengers walking away; they told us the flight had been cancelled, as the crew had "run out of hours".

We then had to recover our bag from the baggage hall, and go to ticketing which is land-side. Luckily, as we only had one bag, my wife waited for it and I went to ticketing. There were five people in the queue ahead of me when I joined it, and half an hour later, when I got to see a clerk, the line was over fifty metres long with our plane's passengers!

Of course, there were no more flights to Madrid available that evening, so, after another 75 mnutes negotiation, we were billetted in the Hilton (an upgrade on the Renaissence where most others were sent due to my birthday...), and spent the evening there. A lovely birthday (not) at Heathrow!

The flight they (BA) got us on was an additional one, due to the cancellation, and it left at 8am the next morning, so we had to be up at 5am to check in by six. Again, we were lucky to get an upgrade to Business Class (probably as we were nice to the ticketing staff...) which softened the blow (and allowed us some free breakfast in the lounge).

Through Madrid but having to change terminals (not easy...), we eventually caught our Granada flight and arrived 22 hours late.

Our hotel and room were very nice, and we had switched our birthday meal reservation back a night. However, we did not envisage the trouble we would have finding the restaurant (set well into the Albaicin backstreets), and when we did arrive, it was too windy to sit outside on the patio as expected. We did have a nice meal with Cava though, but I think we were too exhausted to enjoy it that much.

The next day, we set about walking the streets and enjoying the city. The cathedral was close by (left, as seen from our hotel one evening), and we walked through Sacromonte and Albaicin (in daylight this time, which was much more comfortable) before having lunch in a small square. After the meal, and just before leaving, we noticed it got quite windy again; what we hadn't realised in our enclosed square, was that we were in the middle of a sand-storm! The views we had had prior to lunch were now pretty much obscurd by dust/sand, and it made it quite uncomfortable to see where you were going.

That evening, our planned meal plan was dropped as the weather took a turn for the worse, and it rained (quite unusual for Spain in August!). We therefore satisfied ourselves with beer and tapas!

The next morning, we had tickets booked for the Alhambra (top), and spent all morning and early afternoon there. The carvings and decorations are pretty awesome (the inscription on the left reads "There is no Conquerer but God"), and we took lots of photos.

The gardens and courtyards are very pretty, and they would be awesomely tranquil (see top picture) were it not for the hundreds of tourists who visit each day.

Sadly, some noisy Australians did spoil our visit a small amount, but we just sat a while until they had moved on, and what peace there was returned.

Our favourite part of the Alhambra was not the Nazires Palaces which are pictured in all the tourist brochures, but the Generalife (left) which housed the summer palace. Less tourists made there way to this part of the complex, and it was much nicer for that.

After lunch, we walked back into the main town, and had a lovely siesta back at the hotel. That evening, we finally made our dinner rondezvous we planned for the previous night, and had a lovely meal outside on a square.

We had just about enough time to go inside the cathedral on our last morning, and then caught a cab to the airport for a pain-free journey home.

It was a nice weekend, but one where any expectation we may have had was ruined by the nightmare trip out to Granada. BA will be getting a letter of complaint very soon.