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Last week in Granada we spent the morning being kids again. With a lemon Tango in hand we sneaked into el hospital de San Juan de Dios to look around this magnificent, but sadly decrepit, building in the backstreets of the city. Like, say, the botanical gardens in Valencia, stepping away from the rumble of traffic and … Continue reading
A new exhibition – Bacon, Freud y La Escuela de Londres – has rolled into town. Not Órgiva but sunny Málaga which, on this visit, had burst into life like a disturbed ants’ nest. The summer has truly begun and the tourists were out in force. Soon after arrival – but after a plate of fried … Continue reading
Like the other tourism films on this blog, we didn’t lift a finger in producing it because, this time, we’ve been busy cleaning Saharan sand off every surface in sight. It came courtesy of last week’s rain which painted the Sierra Nevada orange like some awful 1970s dessert. The tango plume has gone and the … Continue reading
A walk into town passing pink almond petals floating in puddles, battered from branches by the rain. It’s dull and grey and there’s a trail of people heading slowly towards Órgiva’s church. The bell tolls; another funeral. The local rivers carry muddy rain water towards the Rio Guadelfeo. The shops and bars are all but … Continue reading
This blog’s ‘Then and Now‘ series demonstrates our enduring interest in places captured in time and their modern-day portrait; and so it continues as we stood outside the Granada home of Spanish composer, Manuel de Falla, born in Cádiz in 1876 (for a brief intro to his life, see bottom). The distant hum of traffic … Continue reading
This post may be of interest to those who know this area well, in particular, locals who knew ‘Upper Camping’ – officially Camping Puerta de la Alpujarra. As of today it has, literally, bitten the dust and looks like a modern day Pompeii. It’s a sad sight and (was) a landmark – its red pyramid-like towers … Continue reading
Recognise this? It’s Órgiva’s church – La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Expectation – before someone decided to rid its facade of charming trompe l’oeil detail and cover it up with the bland colour it is today. Maybe it’s had other designs since the cover-up – polka dots perhaps – but it’s sad it doesn’t look like this … Continue reading
If you visit La Alpujarra, you’d be foolish to ignore the fantastic Museo Casa Alpujarreña, next to Bubión’s church. It’s a typical house of this area, barely altered since its previous – and final – occupier lived here. A time-capsule of a former home, it’s as if someone entered one day and asked for the … Continue reading
If this previous promo film for Andalucia featured only beautiful people, this one – from Canal Sur Turismo – proves only white people live and visit the province. We really don’t need to do the tourist guys’ job for them, but it’s a nice snapshot of the area and includes snow on the Sierra Nevada, Ronda … Continue reading
The great thing about not yet knowing a ‘new’ city is the stuff you stumble upon. So far we’ve chalked up a few smelly junk shops, the fabulous Tauriq – a preserving jar of Granada’s ceramics, bronze and old chestnut – and various restaurants that get you dribbling just at the thought of them. And sometimes … Continue reading
It’s noticeably busier in Granada this week. The streets will progressively fill over the coming months until August, when the heat gets too much and people head out to cooler places. It’s already mighty hot; Spain’s first proper heat of the year has swept across Andalucía. Weather maps have turned from orange to red, and now … Continue reading
In an early trip to this area (around 2013), we headed to Yegen; a village in La Alpujarra made famous by British writer, Gerald Brenan. His famous book – South from Granada – painted a picture of his five years there, from 1919. Tormented by the harsh Andalusian sun for much of the year but … Continue reading
We’ve been meaning to go here for ages. The first time we searched for this place we ended up a kilometre away staring at a sex-shop window. Resisting the urge to enter, we pledged to find one of Granada’s less-visited attractions another day. Tucked behind the sky-high trees on Calle de Antequeruela Alta, one of the … Continue reading
[Update: Metro now open. If you’re travelling by car from Órgiva to Granada and want to use the Metro, park at Shopping Sierra Nevada and hop on it from there.] [From 2016] We say ‘open’ but not in the sense you can travel on it. From its first planning stages in 2002, today, the steel shutters … Continue reading
He wasn’t humming to himself or softly strumming his guitar, but Fernando – owner of a reclamation junk yard near Granada – can sure talk the hind legs off a donkey. There may even have been one tethered to his ramshackle ‘office’, complete with woodworking tools, varnishes and steel wool. A few elderly men whose … Continue reading
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