Kristian and Frances

I can´t write much because we have to be back at our hostal in fifteen minutes to get ready to leave Granada and fly to Barcelona. Last time I wrote we were in Cordoba about to go and see the Mezquita which is absolutely mesmerising, the architecture is like living Escher. I have many more things to say about it but I don´t have time. After spending many hours there (and the Alcazaba) we left the next day on a bus for Granada. Granada has been very kind to us, although it´s a much grittier and slightly more epic city than Cordoba, covered in graffiti and very political. We keep hearing claims that there´s only 200,000 people living here, but it has the feel of a million plus city, and in fact I find that very hard to believe. The day after arriving we queued for four hours to get tickets to see the Alhambra. This was mostly a bad thing except that we met a Czech girl named Teresa who was very friendly and excited for us (she started talking to us because K was reading my copy of ¨Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia¨. The funny thing about all this was that after queueing for four hours Mum and I almost didn´t get to see the Nasrid Palaces (the Alhambra´s crowning glory) because you only get a half hour time window to get in, and it was very badly signposted. We originally thought another castle was it and when we finally realised our half hour time period was over. So then we had to feign, well actually not feign at all, the stupid and confused tourist syndrome. It was well worth the adrenalin rush. I will post about 1000 pictures when I get the chance.

The last two days we have been driving around Andalusia in a rented Fiat. The first day we went to cave country north east of Granada, and yesterday we went to Las Alpujarras, all little towns in the skirt of the Sierra Nevada. It has been spectacular, though cold. My favourite thing about Granada is the roof on top of our hostal, from which we can see the swallows circling over the rooftops of Granada with the Sierra Nevada shimmering behind.