The Long Road to Granada

Friday, April 1, 2016

Today was the start of my short family vacation to Spain, with the first stop being Granada, followed by Seville, Ronda, and finally Malaga.

Inna and I prepared a very complicated European vacation focusing on southern Spain. Since Inna had more time and flexibility, she would depart earlier to see Barcelona and Madrid. In contrast, Alex and I, who have more limitations due to school and work, would leave later and focus more on southern Spain - mainly Seville and Ronda.

Consequently, Inna departed 10 days earlier, on Monday, March 21, for Stockholm, Sweden, followed by a connecting flight to Barcelona, Spain. She planned to spend 5 days in Barcelona and another 5 days in Madrid. Then, she would travel to Granada, Spain, where we would meet and continue our travels.

Alex and I started our travels on Friday, April 1 (April Fool's Day! - What could possibly go wrong?) Getting to Oakland airport was easy - I used UberX - and arrived in about 60 minutes. The cost was a reasonable $51. At the airport, we ordered Chinese food at the Silver Dragon cafe (since we did not pre-purchase dinners for the 10-hour Norwegian Airlines flight to Stockholm). Oakland airport has two kinds of food: bad and terrible, and we opted out for the wrong kind :-) (Oakland airport is an embarrassment to U.S. Airports. I've never been to a more poorly developed airport. U.S. Airport officials should visit Schiphol in Amsterdam or Changi in Singapore to see what an airport should be).

Alex and I flew out of Oakland Airport aboard Norwegian Airlines flight DY7068 at 5:40pm, bound for Stockholm, Sweden. The original departure time was 4:55pm PST, but we encountered 45 minutes of delays because the flight crew arrived late. I was concerned because we only had two hours to catch our next flight to Malaga, Spain. I hoped to avoid becoming one of Murphy's Laws - "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

Fortunately, the Norwegian flight to Stockholm went reasonably smoothly, and we enjoyed flying the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It's much quieter and smoother than the older Boeing and Airbus airplanes we flew to Europe. While on the plane, I watched "Creed" while Alex watched "Brooklyn" and "Flags of Our Fathers." I also had a few hours to read books loaded on my iPad Air. I finished reading "When Breath Becomes Air" by Paul Kalanithi.

We could not sleep on the plane, so we landed in Stockholm a bit tired and jet-lagged.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

We landed in Stockholm at 12:40 pm, but passport control through Swedish customs was prolonged. It almost started reminding me of U.S. customs in San Francisco and Oakland (glacial speed). At 1:20 pm, I was concerned about missing my connecting Norwegian Airlines flight to Malaga, Spain. I talked to the Swedish security officer there, and we were led ahead of the line to my gate #16. It was nice to see Swedish officers take swift action to help out passengers. I really did not want to miss my connecting flight to Malaga.

Luckily, the Norwegian plane for Malaga was getting a bit delayed anyway, so we had time to purchase a few sandwiches to take aboard our 4.5-hour flight. All that unnecessary worrying was for nothing! The Boeing 737-800 bound for Malaga was a newer jetliner but was still much louder than the Dreamliner. Alex did not feel well on the flight, and his ears hurt during the Malaga landing.

We landed in Malaga at 6:40pm - on time but very tired and exhausted. We planned for me to find some reasonable transportation to Granada - either taking a taxi, bus, or train. I discovered that weekend prices for a taxi to Malaga were excessive - 203 euros (which would be 2x what Uber would charge for the 1.5-hour trip).

I decided to look for more economical alternatives and talked to the information office at Malaga's airport. The information lady there was not helpful, but getting to Malaga's central bus terminal would help. There was a bus leaving for Malaga's Central bus station from the airport, and Alex and I boarded it. We arrived at Malaga's bus terminal at around 7:40 pm. I immediately saw a 7:45 pm bus for Granada and ran to get tickets! It was too late for the 7:45 pm bus, but an 8:00 pm bus was leaving soon, so we boarded it. I didn't realize that Spanish buses have assigned seating, so I was surprised to get evicted out of our seats to another seat on the bus.

We arrived at Granada's central bus station at 9:40 pm (and Inna was coming at the same time from. Madrid to Granada by train). There was some repair work on the train tracks between Madrid and Granada, so part of her journey was also by bus. Inna and I kept in touch along the way by using iPhone's messenger service, which seemed to work well with our AT&T Passport package (AT&T Passport offers 120MB of roaming data for $30; passport silver offers $300MB or roaming data for $60).

I found a taxi at Grenada's bus terminal and took a short ride to our Vincci Albayzin hotel. We met with Inna in the lobby and then went to our room. She already checked in. We were tired from the long journey and quickly went to bed. It was one of the most extended and complicated trips to date - and I was surprised that everything turned out as well as it did.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

We got up a bit late in the morning and got breakfast in Vincci Albayzin's lobby. Inna ordered an omelet while I ordered two eggs sunny side up.

The pastries were fresh, and we enjoyed our freshly brewed morning coffee. Alex was not feeling well and still feeling jet lag's effects. We decided to let him stay and rest in the hotel (buying him some delicious homemade chocolate in case he got hungry) while we explored Granada. Since our hotel room had Wifi, we could talk to him throughout the day using iMessage. (I ordered an AT&T Passport data plan with 120MB of international data so that I could use Google Maps to navigate).

Since we had tickets for Alhambra at 4:00 pm, we had plenty of time to explore Granada before our tour. We decided to explore Granada's downtown, stopping by at the nearby Cathedral.

It was very pretty on the inside, but we have seen better and more elaborate cathedrals in Spain (Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and Duomos in Florence, Milan, and Siena). Granada's Cathedral was in Baroque style with obvious Arabic/Moorish influences (as seen from the ceiling).

At around 1:00pm, we stopped by for lunch at Taberna Al Pie De La Torre. (It was recommended on Tripadvisor, but no Yelp reviews were found). We ordered the daily special for two (13 euros per person, which included a soup and an entree).

I ordered some Gazpacho, which is different from what I usually expect in Vienna or Mexico. Gazpacho is generally a red tomato soup with veggies on top. The version in Granada had a lot more cream, so it looked almost orange. It tasted fine, but I must admit that I prefer the blood-red version I had in Vienna's Cafe Demel.

The lunch was acceptable but nothing special.

After lunch, we returned to the bus stop to catch the C3 bus for Alhambra. We arrived in Alhambra a bit past 2:00pm, picked up our tickets (it was great to have pre-purchased them as they were sold out), and began our exploration of the gardens and palaces.

Alhambra is a vast castle, first developed by the Moors who occupied Spain. The castle's design differs from the Western/Christian castles in Italy and Germany. 

There is a lot of complex Arabic calligraphy engraved in plaster on the walls - which was much more elaborate at the time than anything being constructed in Europe in the 13th century.

Another interesting architectural highlight was how fountains were built inside rooms, supplying water to many areas.

We enjoyed our tour of Alhambra but were not overly impressed. At around 6pm, we took the C3 bus to downtown Granada to explore the city more.

While walking around, we stumbled upon a massive crowd of people in front of a gelato shop - Los Italianos. The place was packed with locals both inside and outside. Inna was very curious, so we decided to try it. We ordered a few gelato specialties, like the famous cassata, and were impressed by the quality of the gelato.

The gelato was as delicious as any we've had in Italy.

 
After more exploring, we returned to our Vincci Albayzin hotel to check on Alex. He was feeling a little bit better but still had some throat pain. We decided to go somewhere for dinner. We looked at some reviews and found one rated well - Vamos Carmela.

After dinner, we decided to pre-purchase train tickets from Granada to Seville. I received time-out errors when I tried ordering tickets from Renfe's website. We decided to come downstairs to the hotel's lobby, hoping that the sticker ordering problems were caused by our hotel's poor Wifi coverage. After several more failures in ordering tickets, we asked our hotel staff for help. They also tried to help but without any luck. We tried different credit cards, but none worked.

We finally realized that the online website for Spain's Train company, RENFE, does NOT accept non-Spanish credit cards! I could not believe that a significant train company in one of the European Union's most prominent member states is so restrictive. Moreover, there was no way to purchase tickets over the phone - the only way to buy tickets is through the ticket offices at train stations! Inna had problems earlier getting train tickets (when she was in Barcelona), so we decided not to take any unnecessary chances on our trip to Seville.

I resolved to go to Granada's central train station and order tickets in person the following day.

Monday, April 4, 2016

In the morning (around 7:15 am), I took a taxi to the train station to purchase train tickets for Seville.

When I arrived at the train station, it was nearly empty, and I quickly ordered 3 train tickets for the late train (5:30pm) from Granada to Seville. The problem was getting back to my hotel - since no taxis were there. I waited a bit, but no one arrived, so I called a cab. I called the phone but was put on hold. Eventually, a lady's voice came online. I asked her if she spoke English. She said "Non" and hung up! Luckily, someone else just arrived at the train station, and I could catch a taxi back to my Vincci hotel.

We had a quick breakfast in our Vincci hotel and then took the C3 bus to Alhambra again. We had two preordered sets of tickets - just in case Alex and I arrived late to Granada. Since Alex had not seen Alhambra (the day before), we decided to show it to him. We arrived almost too late and had to run to the gate to get into the palace. We made it! Exploring the place without worrying about taking photos was nice since we did so the day before.

Alex did not really care for the palace, so we left early and stopped by some gelato at Los Italianos. 

The gelato was incredible, as usual, and I enjoyed my chocolate and pistachio flavors. It was much less busy than the day before, and I enjoyed tasting gelato in relative peace and quiet.

Since it started to rain, we decided to go to Granada's bathhouse. We did not want to get soaked exploring Granada on foot. Walking in the rain was not something we were looking forward to (I did not bring my rain jacket or umbrella). When we arrived at our hotel, we asked the concierge to call around and found an opening at noon for a bath and massage at Aljibe de San Miguel.

We took a taxi there and enjoyed soaking in the many warm (and one cold) pools. The atmosphere was dark, and Arabic music was heard in the background. Inna had a 30-minute massage, which she enjoyed very much, and I wanted the 90 minutes of peace and quiet. Alex thought 90 minutes was too long to soak in the pools (but I did not mind).

At around 2:00 pm, we took a taxi back to our Vincci hotel and looked for a place to eat. Alex was not hungry, so we looked for a well-regarded Tapa bar. We found one - Taberna La Tana - well-rated on Yelp. It was a tiny place - standing room only- but we decided to give it a shot due to stellar Yelp reviews and Anthony Bourdain's high rating.

We ordered some white wine (as recommended by the server), as this tavern did not serve our usual Sangria. The white wine - Conde de Caralt (2014) Blanco semi dulce - was delicious. With each order of wine, we also got a free tapa!

In addition to the free tapas, we also ordered a tapa sampler. It was fantastic!

It's common in Granada to get free tapas with every ordered alcoholic drink. I really liked the fresh tapas and fantastic wine. This little place was one of the highlights of our stay in Granada.

After our delicious lunch, we returned to our hotel to check on Alex. He was doing fine but getting a bit hungry. We decided to treat him to some pastries and coffee. Across the street from the hotel was a Casa Ysa bakery.

This bakery had a wide assortment of lovely-looking cakes and pastries. Alex and Inna ordered a couple of tea pastries, which turned out acceptable (but nothing to write home about).

At around 4:45 pm, we ordered a taxi to take us to the train station, where we boarded the bus (and then the train) to take us to Seville. Railroad repair work was going on, so part of the way to Seville was by bus.

The train ride was relatively easy, and we reached Seville's San Bernardo terminal at 8:45 pm (right on schedule). We took the taxi to our rented Airbnb apartment, arriving just after 9:00 pm.