24 June

Madrid to Grenada. We took a 4.5 hour high-speed train from Madrid to Grenada on Sunday. While it is a long ride, it is fun to travel by high-speed train.  You get a direct route without the hassles of airports (delays, baggage, delays).  They have a food car in which you can purchase sandwiches, drinks, and snack foods.  The staff are friendly and seem to enjoy their work.  On the longer routes, they play Spanish films or Spanish-dubbed American films that I found pretty amusing.  Plus, it's kind of cool to take a modern train.

As we traveled south from Madrid to Granada, we saw many miles of dry and dusty fields of olive trees.  Our tour guide, Frederico, said that it rained very little.  The dust from the fields often blows in the wind.  Sometimes it is easy to see how much dust is in the air.

We made a short stop about an hour away from Granada at what appeared to be a fueling station for the train.

At last, we arrived in Granada.

We had some problems getting straight to our hotel. We heard some tourists speaking English so I asked for directions. They also had a Rick Steves' guidebook like mine. They were from Australia and advised us to avoid eating in Plaza Nueva and to eat in Bib-Rambla. After asking for directions twice more, we got to our tiny hotel room. I must say that it had several key features--air conditioning, fridge, elevator, clean bed and clean shower big enough to use.  There are two English TV channels that I have to mention because I they are odd--Disney Channel and Discovery Max channel.

We had a 4 PM appointment at Alhambra. We went but it was very hot--over 100 degrees. I think it will be one of those things we enjoy more later in memory. Andy and I drank 2 liters of water during our visit and could have had more.

We came back to the hotel and took a siesta.  Then, we went for dinner at Bodega Castanedas, a hopping tapas bar filled with the locals. We were kind of lost and hungry, but the one-man service staff gave us a table and started bringing us food.  As we ate, we felt better and enjoyed ourselves.

We strolled the Plaza Nueva and saw a couple getting their wedding pictures. As usual, the kids, grandparents, parents, tourists, hippies, etc, were all out at 11 PM enjoying the cool of the day/evening.