Homeward Bound

7 October 2011
It was time to be a tourist for a change. Some of you may think that, that is what we are full time, but not really. Since leaving Greece we have been on the move, only stopping in Ports or Marinas to rest and replenish supplies in an effort to reach Gibraltar and onward to be in Grand Canary by November 7th. Well, we made up some time and so on the 5th we rented a car (if you could call it that, it was an MR a Musilini's Revenge as Cris calls all Fiats, in this case a Fiat Panda with a 3 "Mousepower" motor and a 5 speed transmission with a clutch, I thought only Porsche and Corvettes had manual transmissions!) and drove to Granada.

As luck would have it we located, purely by accident a hotel in the city center and within walking distance of the Moorish district. We stumbled into a wonderful Argentinian restaurant around the corner for dinner as well.

On the 6th we went to an old church (Spain is rife with old churches, those Papists never sell any of their real estate no matter how old it gets). This particular church held the Crypts of Ferdinan and Isabela as well as some other Spainish royalty. Imagine an indoor cemetary you pay to stroll through, who'd a thunk it? You don't suppose the Vatican was really the one who gave us the Pet Rock do you? Afterward we went in the Moorish quarter and wondered around through the shops. In the late morning we tried to get a reservation for the Flamenco show, but alas, sold out, so one of Cris's priorities went down in flames.

We caught a bus and went to an area across the valley from the Alhambra had a lovely lunch and got some pretty good long distance photos of it. In the evening we went back to the Moorish quarter and had a drink and Tapas with the sounds of the street musicians playing in the Church Square in the background, quite pleasant indeed.

Today the 7th, we planned to visit the Alhambra, which is really the main reason we went to Granada in the first place. So we got up early, packed out of the hotel, had breakfast and went on a long distance trek with the car around the city to the Alhambra. Parked and walked down to the ticket building, stood in line with about a dozen people in front of us. Then it was down to two people in front of us, and then they closed the window and hung a sign saying no more tickets, sold out for today! Rotten luck, sometimes if it weren't for rotten luck we wouldn't have any at all. To add insult to injury we still had to pay for parking for the time we stood waiting to be told no more room!

So with an upset and very disappointed wife next to me I headed down the highway toward Almiriamar and the boat. Along the way about 30 miles out we had noticed of all things, a US 1800's style western village complete with tepees on the hill nearby. So we stopped in and paid our 22 euro and got our tickets including a 'free' drink in the Saloon and went in. I am not sure what the rational is for saying a "free drink" when you pay 11 euro a person to get in, but we had a beer anyway while we perused the movie bills on the Saloon wall. It wasn't really that much to look at, pretty rundown now, I doubt they have filmed anything here in 30 years or more. But it turned out to be "Sierra Leone" which had been the movie set for Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, and others films. We used to think Spaghetti Westerns were filmed in Italy...wrong! It is sometimes surprising what you find when you take the time to leave the highway (in the middle of nowhere, and I don't think the highway was there when the films were being made).

Now for the photo of the day. We took many, and the Alhambra is indeed impressive, but occasionally you run across a photo that just plain tickles you, and I did. I have to explain why. What you see is not a statue and a stuffed dog. What you see is a Mime and a real dog. What tickled me is first, it was a Black Labrador, a breed I have a special place in my heart for. And second it was an illustration of just how smart that breed really is. Before he took his place standing over it the Mime rubbed the dogs chest and talked to it until it either went to sleep, or into a trance, or something because that dog didn't move, didn't twitch, didn't do anything at all except lay there perfectly still as though "it" were the Mime for 3 hours! You could barely see it breathing. This dog works at this profession in three hour shifts for about 6 hours a day, day in and day out. In the middle of the day the Mime and the dog go to a local café for lunch. Spain is so civilized, dogs are allowed in restaurants and bars and stores as long as they are well behaved.