Saturday 30 June 2018

Albaicin - seeing Alhambra from a distance

Three posts within a week and then a longer silence. After the whole birthday/end of schoolyear/ K.'s eye surgery whirlwind, I can finally sit down and write a new post.


Last time I wrote a few words about our first impressions of Granada.


If you remember, my husband offered to get up early in the morning and try to get us tickets to Alhambra palaces. Did he succeed? Did he even manage to get up that early? How was it?


When I woke up in the morning, he wasn't there. It was still very early, but I couldn't sleep anymore. I was too excited and too nervous at the same time. I stayed in my sleping bag, though, cause I didn't want to wake up the kids. I was staring at my phone so intensly that I could almost see through it. I was waiting for some kind of a message from K. A watched pot never boils. Nothing. Not even a lame, old "I got there" or "I'm still waiting". For all I knew, he could have just left us there and gone home. Or anywhere else for that matter. You'd say I could have texted him myself. That's true. But then again, I didn't want to butt at least this time.


The kids got up, got ready for breakfast. We sat at a table when I finally got a message. "I'm coming back". That's it?? Seriously?? No information?? Did he get the tickets?? For which session? Are we even going to get in? Anything? No, why should he. Why give any information to the person most interested, right? No, that's so not right.


Ok, he got back, sat at the table with us and started telling us the whole story while eating breakfast. He got there around 6 a.m., two hours prior to the opening of the ticket offices. It was still totally dark, apart from the tiny path lights a few inches above the ground. The line was already about 200 m long. He sat down, took out his book (luckily the end of the line was near one of the path lights) and started waiting. By eight o'clock, the line was three times as long.


Eight o'clock. The time of truth. The fight for the remaining tickets begins. The ticket offices are open. They started selling the tickets. When K. got close to the top of the line, he heard a message in Spanish (a language he doesn't speak). The only word he could understand was "finito". The end.


Next the message was given in French, which he luckily speaks, cause it calmed him down (before the message was given in English). Tickets were sold out, but for the morning session. They informed that they started selling the tickets for the afternoon one. So there was still hope.


He then took out four tickets for the afternoon. The session started at two p.m. and we had tickets for the Nasrid Palaces for 6:30 p.m. (if I remember correctly). My dreams were about to come true!


We decided not to waste too much time at the campsite and go see the Albaicin. It's an old Moorish district of Granada with a wonderful view of Alhambra from the tower of St. Nicholas' Church.


We got on the bus to Albaicin in the city centre and... we didn't know when to get off. Nobody was saying anything, giving no clues. The bus was going through narrow streets, up a hill. When it seemed like it was staring to go down, I decided it was time to get off the bus. And so we did. It turned out the bus is going in circles (not to and from). And we got off at exactly the point where we wanted to get off. Right at St. Nicholas Church. Talk about perfect timing to make a decision ;)


We got on the tower first. To see Granada. To see Alhambra. To see the rooftops of Albaicin. It was perfect.


Then we went out the church, decided to get back to the town centre on foot. Through the narrow streets of Albaicin. Inbetween the beautiful white buildings. All so calm, so quiet. Until we heard the first noises from the shops selling all kinds of clothes, teas, herbs, spices, souvenirs.


We got back to one of the squares close to the Cathedral, sat at one of the restaurants and had the best paella we had in Spain. We were waiting for the time to come. For 2 p.m. For entering the grounds of the Palaces of Alhambra.

(A little bit of Poland in Southern Spain. The coffee cups in which coffee was served in the restaurant, are manufactured in Łubiana, a place an hour and a half drive from our home)


No comments:

Post a Comment