Granada

Our last stop was Granada. I drove the car all the way up from Gibraltar. We stopped in Marbella for a dinner in a restaurant on the seashore recommended by our Lonely Planet. That was nifty. Wonderful fresh fish and seafood with excellent service. Real dining experience.
We arrived to Granada late in the night, parked the car in the city center and found a hotel around midnight or so. They we went out for a drink in a local Mojito-Bar, where special mojitos and other cocktails are done in a most professional manner. (Mojito is an originally Cuban highball (mixed drink)). That was successful! We both liked it very much.
The day after we picked up our tourist passes from an office and went up to where the Alhambra is by a bus. After getting our tickets to the Alhambra we ate in a restaurant some goat and gaspacho soup. Alla ate torilla, as usual.
The Alhambra is a beautiful garden with Alcazar and palaces inside. We saw the Nasrid Palaces, the Generalife, and of course the Alcazar itself. Must be said that it's very nice, however I had the feeling that Sevilla's Alcazar is much better maintained and renovated.
On our last day around noon I drove to Malaga, where we took the flight to Zurich and then home.

Granada pictures:

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a very special place, because it doesn't belong to Spain, but to Britain. Our car insurance didn't take effect in Gibraltar, but I crossed the border accidentally, turned around, crossed back to Spain, parked the car in La Linea, and crossed the border by feet.
In this colony of Britain they drive on the right side, they have double-deckers where the driver sits on the left, and other strange things. Other that that it's just like Britain. They speak British English occasionally tempered by Spanish words in the most unexpected parts of the sentence.
We hired a taxi driver who took us all around for 2 hours or so. So we went up on the big rock, saw a huge cave which used to be a military base, saw the wall and the tunnel from the era of Charles V., fed the monkey colony, (almost all its 300 members), and drove back to the border through the city. The driver gave us a very detailed lecture about Gibraltar, which was really useful. He was a little bit confused if the Second World War was in the 40's or in the 50's, and asked us if we've heard about it. But other than that it was a good choice.
One more interesting thing is that when you cross the border from Spain you must cross the airport's runway. How? There is a traffic light on both sides, which turns red 10 minutes before landing or departure of an aircraft.

Map:

View Larger Map

Pics:

Ronda and Setenil de las Bodegas

After Sevillia I drove down to where the legendary white villages of Andalusia are. We found some villages off-the-road where we got some authentic taste of the area. Ronda is a white town, which attracts many tourists including us. We saw the museum of the bandits, who kept the whole area scared for hundreds of years. We also saw a museum on the evidences of pre-historic times in this area. On our way to find a hotel I suddenly saw a shop of Adolfo Dominguez, where I wasted around 200 euros for some cloths. I am not a fan of shopping, but they have really cool stuff. We found a hotel in the old part of the city (after having crossed the bridge) which is located in a building dated back to 1734. This was a very special experience.

Ronda:


Senetil de las Bodegas:

Sevilla

Always one of the more difficult tasks of the trip is finding your hotel in a city where you've never been, without having a proper map and with a battery-low GPS where the maps were updated 3-4 years ago. So it was in Sevilla, but finally we made it. Parked the car into the elevator which took us as a whole to -2. Alla was a little but scared, "what if we get stuck in the elevator with the car, we can't even open the doors" and similar very useful panic-agenda.
The hotel was located off-the-map, so the receptionist took the map, and draw on the counter desk the exact location of the hotel. I thought to take it with me (the counter desk), but finally I convinced myself that it was not a good idea. We took bus number 14 (oh, sir it goes every 4-5 minutes!), waited about 15 minutes, but then it took us to town really quickly.
I loved the city! Beautiful buildings, excellent cafes, huge cathedral and the highlight is the Alcazar, which is dated back to at least 1000 years ago. In the evening we went to see Flameco show with some tapas (those we ate as well).
Some pictures:

Cordoba

The ride from Toledo to Cordoba isn't much interesting, but our Audi A3 did the job very well, it's a real pleasure to drive it. Cordoba is a really nice city, it has a long history of Moore and Christian occupation. Like on all cities in Andalusia all cultures left a valuable footprint on it. We arrived in the evening hours. My camera and I don't know how to take pics in the night, but I tried:


On the next day we explored the city, visited in a typical Andalusian house:


We visited a huge mosque, which was converted to a church, and is still functioning as such:

Segovia, Avila, Toledo - pictures

Thanks Robi, who gave me his card reader I can upload pics finally.

On the way from Madrid to Segovia:


Segovia Aquaduct:




Alcazar in Segovia:


Walking on the walls of the Alcazar of Avila on our last rainy day:


Toledo, Puerta Nuevo:






In Toledo we entered a small tienda (shop) to hunt some chorissos and queso (cheese). Vincente sold us some food and let me take some photos:


Vincente and Alla in the shop:


Then Vicente took my camera and took the following lovely shot. The smart fat guy on the right is me.

Spain - 2010

So where did I stop blogging the tour? Oh, yes, that I don't have Internet access and I don't have the camera's USB cable. Hm. So I came home to Tel Aviv with the hope that I'll upload pics soon, after all I have the camera's cable and a card reader as well. Damn, I don't find the camera's cable. Really. I turned upside down the whole apartment. No cable. And to top all that I can't find the card readers cable as well. However I did find several totally useless cables in different colors. I found that searching a cable for more that half an hour is a terrible bore. So I stopped it for today. I'll find some solution.
Anyway. Spain.
We arrived in the middle of Santa Semana: the holy week when Christians celebrate the Easter. I've never seen this fest celebrated in a relatively religious country. One of the most visible parts of the celebrations is marching on the streets in different uniforms of the Church. The uniforms differ according to the age, and the instruments they play. Drums, trumpets, cymbal and other stuff, they wear funny hats, making the streets colorful and noisy. Seems that people who are not very religious all year around suddenly feel a great motivation to demonstrate for religion. A little bit like in our Yom Kipur, when non-religious people decide to fast, or any similar phenomenon.
We saw them in Segovia, in Avila and in Toledo as well as far as I can recall from my fading memory.
Will continue tomorrow.

Internet Access

It is a hard task to find Internet access here, so I promise, I´ll fill up the missing days and will upload pics as well as soon as I can. At the moment we are in Ronda, and will be heading to Gibraltar today and later to Granada. However I am still happy with my decision not to bring laptop with me. It would be nice to have it sometimes, but it would add tons of worries as well.

3rd April, 2010, Avila - Toledo

Weather is rainy today and quite cold, but it didn´t leave us in the hotel. We walked to the old city, which is in 10 minute walking distance from the hotel. We toured all aroun the old city, climbed on the walls and went all aroun to the opposite side on the wall. The rain was a little annoying, but the views were fantastic. Interesting things we ate: torrijas, tortilla, media-noche, jamon, and many more. We´ll be driving today to Toledo in an hour or so.
Pictures will come as soon as I find a place with card reader.

2nd April, 2010, Madrid - Segovia - Avila

Wake up late as expected. Drove all the was to Segovia. The GPS map was a little outdated, so it took us quite an effort to leave the city in the correct direction, but we did it! The road goes up the hills, up to 1800 meters altitude, snow, lots of people , big traffic jams. Segovia is a wonderful little town north-west of Mardid. Roman aquaduct, wonderful old-city, and nice sunny weather. Pictures can talk more. Oh no, I can´t believe it. I brought the wrong cable from home, and here they don´t have card reader. Auch. Pictures will come.
In the evening we drove over to Avila, another nice town. Went to eat Castellian Soup, which is cooked with chorrisos, eggs, and is served with bread inside it. That was good. Weather is chilly here, but we are dressed well enough.

1st April, 2010, Tel-Aviv - Frankfurt - Madrid

Here come the update, this is my first opportunity to use Internet, so I owe 3 posts now.
In the morning I organized myself and the family, and drove down to the airport with our rented Skoda Favorit. Returned the car, sent the family home, and waited for Alla to come. She really came, and we took the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, where we changed and took another flight to Madrid. I was a little bit worried about the short commection, but it didn´t turne out to be a problem. In Barajas Terminal 1 we found the Europcar counter which was closed. Ehm... Ok, I thought that´s my first option to try my Spanish in produnction, so I asked the lady at Hertz who told me to take a transfer bus to terminal 4. So we did. ¨Unfortunately¨ they didn´t have any car from the economy class, so they gave us an beutiful, black Audi A3. The only problem was that I couldn´t start the engine. After about 5 minutes it tuned out that must kick down the clatch and then it starts. :) GPS worked as well, took us without any problems to the hotel which was quite neer the Airport. BTW the car stops the engine each time it doesn´t move, and is in neutral, and the clatch is not pressed. When I kick the clatch down it starts the engine. Haha! Great fun once you understand the concept.