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Travelogue and weather
Checked out of our hotel in Toledo (in the rain), caught a cab to the train station (in the rain), bought some empanadas and a sandwich at the station cafe (in the rain), and took the high-speed train (in intermittent rain) back to Madrid.
When I originally planned this trip, I had an hour's layover planned in Madrid before leaving for Granada, but by the time I actually bought the tickets, that train to Granada was no longer available and I could only get one three hours later. So I tried to leave Toledo later, but those tickets were immutable. So we sucked it up and spent three hours sitting on a stone benchlike-thing with no back (seats with backs are at an extreme premium in the Madrid-Atocha train station) before boarding our train to Granada. Which was uneventful, and of course raining part of the way. We've probably seen several million olive trees today, and that's not an exaggeration: they're small trees, planted in a rectangular grid probably 3m apart, so a 30m square is 100 trees, a 300m square is 10,000 trees... it adds up quickly. And there were some striking mountains along the way too.
Got to Granada, caught a taxi (in the rain), which was stopped by a police road-block about 200m short of the hotel, so we had to walk that last bit with suitcases in the rain, dodging crowds of other tourists.
The hotel is nice, though: in a 16th-century building, with terracotta tile floors and wood-beam ceilings, and it's very conveniently located to shopping and sights. Got a delicious take-out dinner at an empanadas stand 100m away, brought it back and ate it in the room.
Tomorrow, probably more rain, but it's our one full day in Granada, so we'll see what we can see between weather and our physical stamina.
We won't get to the Alhambra tomorrow: by the time I looked for tickets, none were available for either of the days we're here, but I got tickets for April 1, so I changed the itinerary to come back to Granada for one more night (from Córdoba, where we'll be the night before).
When I originally planned this trip, I had an hour's layover planned in Madrid before leaving for Granada, but by the time I actually bought the tickets, that train to Granada was no longer available and I could only get one three hours later. So I tried to leave Toledo later, but those tickets were immutable. So we sucked it up and spent three hours sitting on a stone benchlike-thing with no back (seats with backs are at an extreme premium in the Madrid-Atocha train station) before boarding our train to Granada. Which was uneventful, and of course raining part of the way. We've probably seen several million olive trees today, and that's not an exaggeration: they're small trees, planted in a rectangular grid probably 3m apart, so a 30m square is 100 trees, a 300m square is 10,000 trees... it adds up quickly. And there were some striking mountains along the way too.
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Got to Granada, caught a taxi (in the rain), which was stopped by a police road-block about 200m short of the hotel, so we had to walk that last bit with suitcases in the rain, dodging crowds of other tourists.
The hotel is nice, though: in a 16th-century building, with terracotta tile floors and wood-beam ceilings, and it's very conveniently located to shopping and sights. Got a delicious take-out dinner at an empanadas stand 100m away, brought it back and ate it in the room.
Tomorrow, probably more rain, but it's our one full day in Granada, so we'll see what we can see between weather and our physical stamina.
We won't get to the Alhambra tomorrow: by the time I looked for tickets, none were available for either of the days we're here, but I got tickets for April 1, so I changed the itinerary to come back to Granada for one more night (from Córdoba, where we'll be the night before).