Advice — Driving in Granada
In 2005, just after New Year’s Day, we used our timeshare to visit Spain’s Costa del Sol. Having a rental car, we thought we’d drive over to Granada to see the Alhambra.
Why not? It was less than a three hour drive. We could go and return in one long day. And we would see a different part of Spain and a famous … a famous PLACE.
I learned later it was a fortress built around 900 AD on old Roman ruins, then later rebuilt in the 13th century by the head of the Caliphate of Granada.
I didn’t know the details when we were deciding where to go that day, but I knew the name.
It turned out that hundreds of thousands of tourists also knew the name, and were as curious as I was. Also they all had New Year’s week off and had descended on Granada and the Alhambra that very day.
The Alhambra has a limit on the number of people who can visit at once, and we late-comers, having driven for 3 hours, were not there in time. Even though it was the only day in our whole lives when we could tour it, we were turned away at the door.
I didn’t mention that before we knew about the line — the queue — we had had to park some distance away. We were well committed before we were disappointed.
What to do? We ate something, and then decided to walk around the outside. After all, the outside is just as ancient as the inside. So we set out on foot.
We might not have noticed, had we been inside and enjoying who-knows-what, but being on foot allowed us to experience that the land there is hilly, that the brickwork was exemplary. We learned later that these were all sun-dried bricks. And that the Alhambra is built in the foothills of mountains.
As we walked — and walked — we were ever more conscious of the mountainous terrain, the immense size, the square structures it was composed of.
We were also aware that we were missing the real Alhambra experience. We hadn’t understood enough the importance of visiting such an ancient structure. To see a structure that could never have been built in America. To see up close an Islamic palace.
To be reminded once again how little we knew, how small our personal world, how vast and complex the dealings and intrigues and contentions and flowerings of mankind, even in the tiny slice of the past 800 or 1000 years.
We headed back to the car, hoping to avoid the busy holiday outflow of traffic at the end of the day.
On the way to the main road out of town, we spent a great deal of time on back streets and side alleys. “Surely if we want to go over that way, we should turn here” sorts of conversations punctuated the otherwise intense silence.
We did find our way to the main road out of town. But we found ourselves facing traffic heading the wrong way, inbound.
Finally we found the best way out of town was to head into town and use the assistance of a roundabout to get turned around.
At the first roundabout I did a full 360 — twice. These main-street roundabouts were wide, two lanes of roadway expanding to three or maybe even four lanes within the roundabout. The signs were of course in Spanish, and flashed by quickly, as did the cars in all the other lanes.
The trick with roundabouts is to be in the proper lane. Not the one that requires exiting, if it’s not exiting you want to do. And not the one many lanes toward the interior if you want the next exit.
Also to process these details in real time. Sometimes many trips around an inner lane is just the right thing to do.
Between roundabouts were regular city streets full of cars. That was the hardest part. Because we didn’t know the full etiquette of changing lanes in Granada. In Spain. Do I hold out a hand to indicate my wishes? Would it mean please, or thanks? Or hold your horses? Or look at my ring? Or something altogether rude?
And since this was a rental car, they had no clue we were tourists and should be treated with gentleness and forgiveness. Though as I think back on it, that’s just how our fellow drivers seemed to be, non-aggressive, even sedate.
We spent as much time leaving Granada, a metro area of half a million back then, as we did at the Alhambra. But eventually we found the major highway back to our town, to our apartment, to our cozy couch and bare kitchen.
My advice is to go to Granada, to the Alhambra. To plan on plenty of time: we learned later we could have spent the whole week in Granada and gone home the wiser for the visit, culturally and perhaps even culinarily.
I wish I knew more about the food. Our quick snack near the Alhambra was so unmemorable that I don’t recall what it was. And we never found another place to eat that day. Yes, Granada deserved more time than we gave it. Our loss.
Oh yes, it dawns on me that none of this makes sense until I mention that we didn’t have a mobile phone with us, nor its camera. Nor its GPS. We have no photos, not of the Alhambra, nor of the food, nor even of those interesting side streets where we spent so much time.
One other tiny detail: we were able to get into the gift shop without any problem, so we have a lovely book to remember our trip by. And to show us what the Alhambra looks like inside. It would have been a great visit.
Peg Lewis is a great-grandmother, a linguist, and a life-long writer and scientist. She was born in New England. She also lived in San Diego, Spain, Switzerland, Beijing, New Zealand, and the Pacific Northwest. She currently resides in Tucson in a 3-generation household where she is next-to-oldest.
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