First Day in Granada

We arrived in the early evening and planned on getting to our hotel, getting something to eat and then unpacking and sleeping in order to be fresh for the first full day. Went to the cafe/bar across from our hostel for some wine and tapas. If you're not familiar with tapas, they are little bites or small plates served with your drink - you order a drink, you get a tapa. What you get is totally up to the cafe. After we finished, we felt the need to walk a little and we ran into our first procession coming out of the cathedral. The area of Andalusia is noted for the Semana Santa processions. They start on Palm Sunday and go through Easter Sunday. The floats tell the story of the passion of Christ. Each float weighs around one ton and it is carried on the necks and upper backs of members of the church. The procession is led by members of various confraturnities and they are dressed in long robes with pointed hoods. Very similar to what we would call the dress of the KKK. when you first see it, it is a bit disconcerting because of our history in the US, but these confraturnities have been around for centuries. I didn't have my camera with me that night since I wasn't expecting to see a procession so no photos from those floats but there will be several more to come. This was Paula and Dave's first time here and first time to experience this in person. It was actually more fu. For me to watch their reactions than to see the floats.

I think we returned to the hotel around 11 that night, probably one of the earliest nights of the entire week in Granada.

The plan for the next day was to wander, or as I like to call it, get lost in Granada. Hit the ATM first, bought a bus pass and then started walking. We followed the Darro River til we got to the Moorish Bazaar area. One can get lost in the narrow streets and alleys which are lined with shops on either side. The restaurant we wanted to eat at was not yet opened so Paula and I decided to get henna tattoos. Afterwards we stopped at a tea room and killed time.

The Cathedral in Granada. You can see the viewing stands for the processions coming to the cathedral. They process through and then return to their respective churches. Some of these processions left their churches at 4 in the afternoon and returned at 3 in the morning. They carried these floats through outrageously hilly and narrow streets,

Just a ham shop we passed by.

This is the Church of Santa Ana. Take note of how narrow the door is. That's what the floats needed to get through. Sometimes the folks carrying these had to do so on their hands and knees to get through the doors.

There were three floats in the church that would be used throughout the week.

I couldn't believe how well sculpted the faces were.

This was the back of the Virgin's float showing her cape.

 

 

 

Our walk along the Darro.

Just to show how narrow some of the streets are. Mini buses also went up this street.

Another beauty shot!

 

 

The tea shop we stopped at.

 

Paula's tattoo. The writing to the left of the flower is her name in Arabic.

My tattoo with my name to the left.

Couldn't believe the wiring!

 

I think Ernie would have trouble getting in and out of this place easily.

Dinner are Arrayanes in the Bazaar. Ernie and I ate here three years ago and Mostafa still remembered us. Not sure what that says about us but we laughed as much this time as we did before.

That brings us to time to go to the hostel and relax before we head out for the evening processions.

 

 

Kids collect wax balls and keep adding to them every year.

 

Mothers are the same all over the world. This mother was giving her child something to drink while they were stopped.

 

We were really surprised when we saw this float. It was the one we saw in the Church of Santa Ana that afternoon.

We finally decided to start heading home around 10 to have an early evening but actually saw a few more floats so the best laid plans of mice and men......

 

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Leaving Portugal 2017

So I wrote and published, so I thought, three blog postings. Come to find out that they never published due to a problem with the photos, actually the blog application could not locate the link to the photos. I didn't worry too much since I still had the text and would just have to figure out the picture problems. Well, the problem was an IPad that was running out of memory (don't know why 14000 photos would be a problem, lol) along with a very slow internet connection. After much hemming and hawing, I figured out that I just needed to remove a lot of photos from the device and all would be right with my world. Once I did that everything seemed to be working, I was ready to rock and roll! I pulled up the drafts and all the text was gone, along with the photo thumbnails. So here I go again.

Leaving Portugal, had our last breakfast prepared by Ana and Rita and said goodbye.we were spending the night in Lisbon because we had an early flight so our plan was to drive back stopping at Nazare and Obidos to sightsee. We got to The seaside town of Nazare along with what seemed like every other person in Portugal. It is a quaint and beautiful beach town and since the weather had been very warm and the kids were out of school for the holiday, everyone was there. After driving around for a while and never finding a parking spot, we decided to leave and head for Obidos. The sad part is that Paula and Dave never got to try percebes and beer (barnacles). Before you poo-poo barnacles, they are quite good. On the salty side and they go great with cold beer. Guess we just have to come back again.

Thankfully the crowds weren't very bad in Obidos which is a old walled city. I am not going to go into much detail just let the photos speak for themselves:

This photo is specifically for Joelle.

Ernie's brother-in-moustache!

Both the wisteria and red bud trees were blooming.

Flowers even grow in the roof gutters!

 

 

 

That's Dave on the wall.

Paula and I walked up this side of the wall.

 

Ernie wouldn't climb up with us.

What goes up must eventually come down - Paula and Dave coming down.

One of Paula's many beauty shots!

 

 

The tree sort of dwarfs Ernie.

 

 

I have a love affair with doors and door knockers so you'll just have to put up with a lot of these kinds of photos.

They even trellis bougainvillea.

After a few hours of walking around and marveling at this lovely town, we had to leave for Lisbon and a much less than good hotel. We were all glad it was only for one night. Flying to Granada the next morning and that will be the start of another set of adventures.

 

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