It had been really bloody cold last night. Temperatures dropped to somewhere between 3 to 1 degree and it made for an uncomfortable night. Not because we didn’t have enough blankets to deal with it but because Number 3 refused to sleep in his cold “bed” and decided that mama was the only warm place to sleep upon.

Today was the day to visit Granada. Our camp ground was only about a 30km drive away and I had really been looking forward to seeing the Alhambra. However, it turned out (again) that Spain is incompatible with our travelling style. We had the same trouble in Barcelona already when we couldn’t get tickets to see any of the sights I wanted to see. Though back then, we could have remedied it by staying a couple of days longer: No same-day tickets but tickets in a couple of days were available. So we learned from this and had checked out tickets for the Alhambra about 3 days in advance with the option of adding up to 3 days to our stay…just to make sure we actually get to see it this time. De nada. Online tickets to visit the Alhambra are sold out until the middle of June. There is a small number of same-day tickets but people start queueing for them from 2am onwards…nothing that is at all feasible with a baby.

So there we had it. Physically in Granada, unable to see Alhambra. Didn’t make for the best of mornings or city visits. I understand the necessity of regulating the number of visitors…didn’t lessen the disappointment though.

We still drove into Granada and checked out the outside of the Alhambra but it isn’t that much fun. Also, there is not much to see except for a wall and a bit of garden. It’s a good time to go as all the orange trees have fruits upon fruits hanging on them and just look lovely.

With that little sightseeing done, we drove into the city center of Granada. Eating traditional tapas helped a little to get over the disappointment. We picked a traditional tapas place instead of fusion one to get a taste of southern Spain. Flo loved it! He ordered the “warm plate” for two people, even if the menu suggested that only one thing on there was vegetarian. So I had Spanish potato and egg omelette from the plate and a spinach empanada that I ordered. Not feeling quite as filled as Flo I continued to order “Queso a la plancha” which turned out to be three big pieces of grilled cheese with orange marmalade and…fish eggs…*shudder*. Luckily, everything was piled up neatly and I could eat around the fish eggs.

A stroll through the inner city showed us some great architecture and an impressively clean and rich looking city. For our actual sightseeing, we went into the museum next to the cathedral; the place where Isabella and Ferdinand are buried and some of their personal things and art is exhibited. So I got to see some Memlings and Van der Weydens as well as a Botticelli up close.

Worn out from walking around and spending that much time in the sun, we continued on a short while towards Malaga. A very affordable little camp ground right before the city was our stop for the night.

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