Easter 2004 we went to Andalucia in southern Spain to visit my stepmother, taking with us our neighbours Lorna and Richard. Of the week in Spain, we'd decided to spend two nights in Granada, only a couple hours drive away, visiting the Alhambra, so on the Monday morning, set off. I'd previously booked at the Hotel Macia Plaza over the internet. Jenny and I had been to Granada some years previously, so didn't expect to encounter any major difficulties. We had a Rough Guide with a very superficial streetplan and the printout of the hotel booking which included directions. Easy peasy, we thought. (hollow laugh)
Getting to Granada took slightly less than the expected 2 hours, it being an easy, lightly-trafficked dual carriageway all the way. As we entered the town, however, we realised we were supposed to be looking out for certain street names, but could see none, or at least, none we recognised. Then I found myself in a lane where I was obliged to turn right, away from our intended route. No chance to get back into the correct lane, just grind your teeth and drive the wrong way.
No problem, I thought, just right and right again should bring me back to where I started. Wrong. You might make one right turn, but the next one is turn left only, and so on, until you've driven through a warren of narrow streets and become completely disorientated. The well-named Rough Guide streetplan, having only about 10% streetnames marked, was useless.
Eventually we saw a sign for the Alhambra. As the hotel was close to the Alhambra, we followed that, soon enough being spat out onto the inner ring road. The next junction was signposted with something Jenny, being navigator, recognised. "Come off here" she said "and head roughly north." So off we came, turned back under the dual carriageway and found ourselves on a big roundabout. Sadly, the exit I took was the one before the one we wanted, so we were soon back in the rabbit warren. Well, another rabbit warren, I think. Isn't it odd how you realise just before it's too late that you're about to go wrong, but then there's too much traffic around you for you to safely correct yourself? You know you're going wrong and just have to keep on going wrong.
And so it went on. Each time we thought we were nearly there, something forced us away from our chosen path. Or we didn't see the sign quite in time to actually take the exit we needed. Often, we could see the road we wanted, but couldn't get to it, or were actually on it, but travelling in the wrong direction. We saw most of downtown Granada, I swear.
Finally we made it to the Plaza Nueva and could see our hotel, but sadly, there was nowhere to park, just a taxi rank. Helplessly, we drove by, only to find ourselves on a tiny cobbled street which narrowed as it went on. There was a car right behind me, naturally, so I couldn't stop to take stock, or even think about turning.
I decided to take the next left (there was a river on the right) and then go left again, hoping to find my way back to the Plaza Nueva. The next left was barely wider than the car, but undaunted, up we went. The car behind followed, the bastard!
50 metres up this alley, it turned left through 90°. First I was afraid I was going to bash the front of the car on the wall ahead of me, then that I would scrape the side on the corner next to me, but somehow I made it around that corner. I crept off along this alley, also barely wider than the car.
Just as I was starting to breathe normally, there was a loud bang and I'd hit the passenger side door mirror on a piece of house that projected further than the rest. The unit folded neatly in, as designed, smashing the mirror and spraying tiny slivers of glass over Jenny and her side of the car. That really pissed me off. I'm pretty proud of my ability to judge the width of a car and squeeze through narrow gaps, and I've never before bent a hire car. Fortunately, Jenny was not cut by any of the mirror glass, most of which stayed in place, though shattered.
By now, I'd just about had it, so when, a few yards further on, I saw a parking space only slightly smaller than the car, I drove into it, leaving the tail sticking half a metre or so out into the street. The car behind was able to squeeze by, so I figured that would do. We were only about 100 metres from the hotel, according to my reckoning, so we took our luggage (not much, as we were only there for two nights) and walked. Having taken 2 hours to get to Granada, it had then taken us a further hour to get to the hotel.
At the hotel, the receptionist checked us in, but then looked blankly at Lorna and Richard. Turns out I'd somehow booked one twin-bedded room instead of 2 doubles. Checking my printout confirmed it was definitely my fault. How can you fail to notice such a basic error? Could they accommodate Lorna and Richard? No, fully booked. Then she relented and looked at her computer monitor. Yes, she could squeeze them in after all. I'm sure it was all done for effect, but I was past help and pathetically grateful.
Next question, where do we park? She got out a tourist guide with a rather more adequate streetplan and drew on it a complicated path that crossed itself at least once, leading to an underground car park. I looked at that and didn't fancy it one bit, deciding to think about it over a beer, wondering whether the car would be safe where it was, but eventually deciding not as it was sticking out into the road.
Once the fundamentals were sorted out, we asked about the Alhambra, having heard that you now have to book tickets to get in, a big change since we were last here. No chance, says the gallant receptionist. All tickets are sold. You could queue but it's most likely 4 hours queuing and no guarantee you'll get in. We skipped the Alhambra, our main reason for going to Granada in the first place.
Actually, that's the end of the nightmare. We had a couple of beers, then walked the route to the car park before collecting the car and driving it, and I'm glad we did, or I'd have been driving around Granada still, I bet. Oh yes, and the other joy of Granada was that this underground car park cost me 16 euros a day to park. That's right, something like £10 or $15 a day!
So will I go back to Granada? I'd like to. It's a fabulous place, but I'll be more careful about how I book and I'll make sure I've got a decent streetplan before I set out. I don't think the parking is that big a deal, since the hotel room was only 68 euros a night, which seemed good value, though the room was rather pokey. A hotel with its own parking might have charged a lot more.
The only other facet to this tale, which someone might have a better answer for, is what we should have done about a beautiful pot we wanted to buy. It was too big for hand luggage, being about 60cm high and 20cm diameter. We had no facilities to pack it up ourselves and either check it or mail it home, and the removal firms we spoke to later (having got back to our apartment in Calahonda we considered driving back to Granada to buy it) would have charged at least £100 to ship it for us. The shop had no facilities to mail it for us, though they did offer to go with us to the post office, which hindsight suggests might have been the best option. In the end, afraid that shipping ceramics is too fraught with difficulties, we abandoned it, but have regretted doing so.
In May, 2005, we visited my stepmother in Calahonda once more, and took a day out to drive to Granada. Equipped with better maps we were confident we'd drive straight to the only car park we knew, but inevitably, we got lost. The new orbital motorway had been completed since our last visit, and instead of the A92 taking us straight to the centre of the town, we found ourselves on the orbital, blithely sailing by the Granada West exit. We picked our way down from Granada North and amazingly found ourselves where we wanted to be, but it was touch and go.
We were instantly siphoned off into the rabbit warren again, but this time Jenny was able to navigate us with confidence to the car park, which was, you guessed it, full. Completo. After another 15 minutes or so of meandering randomly around, I spotted a white van reversing out of a slot which I slid straight into.
We didn't imagine the pot would still be waiting for us in the shop, but hoped we could find something comparable. What we didn't expect was that the shop would have closed down entirely. Damn! Well, that was Plan A out of the window, and there was no Plan B. However, lunch in a square up under the Alhambra was good and we spent several more happy hours investigating every nick-knack shop we could find, but without success. Bought ourselves some consolation prizes, but still we lack that fabulous pot.
This page last updated on 14 May, 2007, by Rob Clack