Giles Spain 2017

  DAY 11 - CORDOBA We started the day at the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos (Fortress of the Christian Monarchs).  This was built under Castilian rule in the 13th and 14th centuries on the remains of a Moorish fort.  There were some lovely peaceful gardens. To view a larger image left click ima ge once.   To return to the Blog use the Back Button or click once off the image A view from the top of the wall A view towards the gardens A large Roman mosaic A small meeting room In the courtyard Part of the Roman wall Lilies at the lake The inevitable orange trees Three wise men? The rest of the day we spent looking at more of Cordoba.  We again used a local service bus for this. Many of the routes were circular so we just got on a bus from near the apartment and sat there for the whole route.  This is a cheaper alternative to taking one of the specialized "tour the ...

DAY 12 - GRANADA Our second day out was to Granada, 163 km South East of Cordoba.  This involved an early start bus ride of nearly 3 hours on the outbound journey, long, but we knew that Granada and the Alhambra was not a place to miss. The longer distance buses are very modern and comfortable and we enjoyed the ride though the countryside.  We had read that getting into the Alhambra was difficult because of the shear volume of people trying to get in and they limit the number who can get in each day and the limit is 6000. There are three possible solutions to this problem.  You buy tickets ahead.  The problem with that is that you have to do this at least a month before your visit and not realising this until too late as we didn't have the month.   A very few tickets are sold on the day, about 1000.  To get these you need to be there around 5.00 a.m. to join the queue.  Not a solution for us as we weren't going to arrive that ...