4 July Granada to Trevelez in the Sierra Nevada

Up early (7:30 is early here) this morning to get to the Alhambra (THE place to see when you are in Granada) before the crowds and to cover it before we had to check out of our hotel at 12 noon (the usual time to check out by, here). The hotel we had chosen was very close to the entrance to the Alhambra so it didn’t take us long to get there. We entered through the Puerto de las Granadas and walked up to the Puerta de la Justica.

All the literature we had read had said that you needed to get there early to avoid the queues. We initially didn’t have enough information to make any informed decisions about where to go and what to see. We managed to find a map of the area that gave us a bit of a clue as to where to go without queuing and paying a fortune for a ticket, so we walked through and looked at as much as we could without a ticket. We soon realised that the area wasn’t as large as it was made out to be and we covered the area with time to spare AND there was no queue to buy tickets so we decided to buy a ticket to enter the Generalife and the Alcazaba

especially as it was only 7 Euros each. Well worth it as the Generalife had beautiful gardens

And a 700 year old Cypress tree trunk

70 year old with a 700 year old

and it meant we were able to walk through most of the general areas of the Alhambra too. The only thing we missed seeing was the Nasrid Palaces and they had restricted viewing times any way so we were happy we had covered what we had and enjoyed it.

We even had time to stop off at a souvenir shop on the way back to the hotel and to stop and watch some segways in the square before checking out of our hotel and heading out again for our next destination – Trevelez and the Sierra Nevada

What a journey that was. We thought all the other trips were on twisty turny roads – this beat them all, although they were wider and so perhaps a little easier to negotiate. At one stage we went over a series of incredibly high viaducts over a vast expanse of water, quite an engineering feat.

Trevelez is only a small village

and so it wasn’t that hard to reach our destination, other than the fact that little panda could no way travel the inclines of the roads, so we had to find a park for her en route and walk the rest, up the very steep incline. Parking wasn’t that hard to find either – hooray. 

We had booked into Hotel La Fragua 1. A little confusing to find as there are two Hotel Fragua’s but with the help of a local we managed to locate it and then go back for our bags and drag them up the hill

A refresher drink and a bite to eat before exploring the village (the highest village in Spain) we decided to follow the route of the Tres Barrios ( the three levels of the town built into the hillside)

         

Which took us to the Alto Barrio where we just had to have a drink at the highest bar in Spain!!

We did try the wifi when we got back to the hotel but weren’t very successful so no blog again.

Dinner in the restaurant Fragua with beautiful views out to the mountains with the setting sun giving the mountains a red hue

had trout stuffed with the local ham – delicious. Went to bed reasonably early with the french doors open out onto the balcony

a beautiful peaceful clear night. At last we were in a quiet place, we thought!!!. Nice and quiet to go to sleep but then we were woken with babbling outside our window at 4:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep again L