Granada, Espagne
TOH, his parents and I spent a fab weekend in Granada - no, not the Coronation St tour but the hill-top town in southern Spain (sorry for missing your birthday, Jo. Was it a good one?).
The Ryan Air flight left from from Stansted at the crack of dawn - I swear the seats are getting smaller and smaller on those planes. And how their waitresses can feel any pride in their jobs, I don't know - every five minutes they come round and try to sell you crap you don't want such as lottery tickets, phone cards, plastic rubbish and curly sandwiches.
We nearly missed the plane as the TV screens in the airport were telling us to 'wait in lounge' but the tannoy was calling our names for final boarding! We weren't the only one making a mad dash to the gate, where we got abused by a bloke in a lumious yellow jacket, who threatened to not let us on if we protested that the instructions given were wrong.
Anyway, the horrible flight aside, we arrived in Granada safely and took a cab to the hotel. It was situated right next to the Alhambra palace, which was handy. But to get in we had to book our tickets in advance by buying them from a bank in town.
We had missed the allocated slots for the day so bought them for the following day. We than wandered around the hillside opposite the palace, which was all cobbly streets and beautiful old buildings.
The two hills were separated by a valley and a river, which we called Cat Valley because there were several tribes of feral cats, all different colours, laying about licking their bums, snoozing in the sun or sizing each other up for a ruck.
The Islamic-influenced architecture and reconquista Christian churches made for a very interesting tour. One placa by a church gave unparalled views of the palace across the valley. The guide book warned us to be wary of people performing 'distracting flamenco' while their cohorts picked our pockets but sadly we didn't see any. Maybe it was not the season for such artistic diversionary tactics!
For lunch we had the obligatory tapas and in the evening, a paella, por favor.
I was surprised to find that I could get by in Spanish again, having only ever learned it from a tape which I played in my car two years ago prior to the Great Cuba Trip, made with Ms Fawcett MBE.
The following day, we were up and at Alahambra at 8.45am before the coaches arrived. What a magnificent place. We were totally blown away by the beauty of the place. I developed a fascination for the tessalating patterns of tiles used to decorate the place.
I am not sure if it is true but I was once told that Islamic art is all about geometric patterns and beautiful calligraphy because it is forbidden to make images of men and animals ... having said that, one of the great treasures there is a lion fountain made of 12 lion statues holding up a big bowl of water.
But it is so amazing there. You can really imagine the emirs and their court living a very civilised Medieval life surrounded by tinkling fountains, music, art, learning, beautiful fabrics, big cushions, harems of beautiful women and fine dining.
Probably not quite so civilised for all the servants and ordinary people!
The Ryan Air flight left from from Stansted at the crack of dawn - I swear the seats are getting smaller and smaller on those planes. And how their waitresses can feel any pride in their jobs, I don't know - every five minutes they come round and try to sell you crap you don't want such as lottery tickets, phone cards, plastic rubbish and curly sandwiches.
We nearly missed the plane as the TV screens in the airport were telling us to 'wait in lounge' but the tannoy was calling our names for final boarding! We weren't the only one making a mad dash to the gate, where we got abused by a bloke in a lumious yellow jacket, who threatened to not let us on if we protested that the instructions given were wrong.
Anyway, the horrible flight aside, we arrived in Granada safely and took a cab to the hotel. It was situated right next to the Alhambra palace, which was handy. But to get in we had to book our tickets in advance by buying them from a bank in town.
We had missed the allocated slots for the day so bought them for the following day. We than wandered around the hillside opposite the palace, which was all cobbly streets and beautiful old buildings.
The two hills were separated by a valley and a river, which we called Cat Valley because there were several tribes of feral cats, all different colours, laying about licking their bums, snoozing in the sun or sizing each other up for a ruck.
The Islamic-influenced architecture and reconquista Christian churches made for a very interesting tour. One placa by a church gave unparalled views of the palace across the valley. The guide book warned us to be wary of people performing 'distracting flamenco' while their cohorts picked our pockets but sadly we didn't see any. Maybe it was not the season for such artistic diversionary tactics!
For lunch we had the obligatory tapas and in the evening, a paella, por favor.
I was surprised to find that I could get by in Spanish again, having only ever learned it from a tape which I played in my car two years ago prior to the Great Cuba Trip, made with Ms Fawcett MBE.
The following day, we were up and at Alahambra at 8.45am before the coaches arrived. What a magnificent place. We were totally blown away by the beauty of the place. I developed a fascination for the tessalating patterns of tiles used to decorate the place.
I am not sure if it is true but I was once told that Islamic art is all about geometric patterns and beautiful calligraphy because it is forbidden to make images of men and animals ... having said that, one of the great treasures there is a lion fountain made of 12 lion statues holding up a big bowl of water.
But it is so amazing there. You can really imagine the emirs and their court living a very civilised Medieval life surrounded by tinkling fountains, music, art, learning, beautiful fabrics, big cushions, harems of beautiful women and fine dining.
Probably not quite so civilised for all the servants and ordinary people!
posted by The WyeBird @ 12:10 pm
2 Comments:
At 6:58 pm,
Anonymous said…
A possible solution to the Ryanair fiasco could be to boycott the airline.
I'm pretty sure the stewardesses don't want to be selling the tat either, but I guess they don't have much of a choice.
This story might give you a flavour of what Ryanair are actually up to - and that is just to their pilots! http://www.guardian.co.uk/airlines/story/0,1371,1330592,00.html
Ryanair clearly make no secret of their "Sun"-style opposition to trade unions forming and taking action to defend their terms and conditions - this is taken from their own website.
http://www.ryanair.com/press/2005/feb/gen-en-040205.html
It's hard to know whether a boycott of Ryanair would be a good thing, as naturally the guy in charge would start passing the losses on to his staff rather than take a cut from his own massive salary. In fact - he already has. Last year, he froze the pay of all staff on the airline, but managed to find enough loose change to push his own meagre wages up by 25% to a paltry 694 Euros a year.
There is light at the end of the tunnel though. A formation of staff and unions have set up a website demanding that Ryan Air give them a bit of fair play.
This story might give you a picture of what Ryanair staff have to put up with http://www.ryan-be-fair.org/news/current_situation.htm
Happy flying!
At 10:49 pm,
The WyeBird said…
Wow! A comment by a completely random person! (or at least I can't work out who wrote this) I am so chuffed!
I will read the links tomorrow at work - I'm guessing they are less than flattering.
It reminded me that I forgot to moan about the near miss over the English Channel. I looked out the window to see the ships below and suddenly there was another Ryan Air plane literally about 300m from us, if that, flying at the same level and in the same direction. Just as I was exclaiming 'what the ffff' we banked away from it extremely sharpish.
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