Córdoba to Granada (Friday, October 17th)

There were two notable things about our 2 1/2 hour train journey from Córdoba to Granada today.  First was the olive trees as far as you could see, on both sides of the tracks, for many many miles. Second was that the train had to stop to switch from the international rail track spacing (standard gauge) to the Spanish national rail spacing (Iberian gauge).  The spacing between the wheels on each car gets physically adjusted from the standard 143.5 cm to 166.8 cm so that the train can operate on the older rail network.

Oops, there was a third thing....all over Spain there are huge construction projects building new high speed rail lines and highways, and on today's journey we saw both in progress. The Spaniards will tell you that the government has overbuilt infrastructure, and that is why they have no money left for the people. It sounds just like Canada, but we didn't get any infrastructure ☺️

We arrived in Granada at 1:30 pm, or as we Europeans say, 13:30, to a temperature of 27 degrees Celsius.  So it is certainly warming up.  In stark contrast, there was snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains outside the city.  No wonder it is forecast to go down to 12 degrees overnight. 

We had a 1.2 km walk to our apartment, which we found without incident. The agent who met us at the apartment spoke not one word of English, and when we did not understand her, she talked louder and faster (in Spanish) which we did not understand. But having been through the drill several times now, we knew that she wanted payment and wanted to tell us what to do with the keys when we left. Eventually, with the help of a pen and paper, we both able to make ourselves understood. The photo below shows the lock on the apartment door, which is similar to the lock that we had in Córdoba....it is a triple turn lock that pushes 3 sets of 4 locking rods into holes in the door jamb.  They really rake security seriously. 

It was then time to take a walk up the Rio Dorro, and through Sacromente, the Gypsy area of Granada, before buying groceries.  We collectively almost melted in the unexpected heat!

Note the construction of the road in the photo below of one of the gates into the old city - rocks sticking out of concrete. Iris very common in Spain, and very hard on the feet (and vehicle shocks). 

Snow over the Allhambra, seen during our walk

No siesta for me today, too much to do.  We (unexpectedly) have wifi, courtesy of the young woman who owns the apartment below us, so we had to Skype the grandchildren, and catch up on a few emails while we can. 

After dinner we took a stroll along some if the major streets, watching the people and enjoying the vibrancy of the beautiful warm evening.