This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

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Lynn and I were done with the Acosta Museum by 11:00 am.

“What shall we do now?  Fancy a walk down into the town again?” she suggested.

“Sure.  Maybe we can find that Hop On Hop Off bus thing,” I answered.

The streets of Granada, or at least the scenic sections of it, were way too narrow for the standard red double-decker sightseeing bus.  But some kind of tourist vehicle had passed us the night before. It looked like a toy train.

We also wanted to find the Cathedral, where Isabella and Ferdinand were entombed.  I was binge reading Phillipa Gregory’s books about the Tudors and wanted to learn more about the parents of Henry the Eighth’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon.  She was the only one of his wives who had been born of a king and queen, raised to be a queen, and who put up a good fight when he tried to shed her.

I’ve written about my ability to get lost.  I accept this trait and even welcome the (good) surprises it can produce.  Lynn, however, had silly expectations that we would consult a map, head in the “right” direction, and arrive at our chosen destination without detours.

It’s been said of St. Paul (mostly by people from our twin city, Minneapolis) that the streets were laid out by drunken Irishmen.  To which I counter, “What’s wrong with that?”  It’s so much more interesting than your boring, uptight Scandinavian-influenced grid plan over there across the river.

Granada reminded me of St. Paul, with streets twisting like rivers. There were tiny alleyways only pedestrians could maneuver, and only single file.  Here’s a map of the Albaicin district:

Street signage was hit and miss, sometimes at the top of a wall, sometimes in an actual street sign, and sometimes embedded in the sidewalk. There were sometimes pretty icons which were maybe meant to mark streets; this one was about 25 feet up on a wall.

And so we got hopelessly lost, over and over.  I think Lynn felt really frustrated by our incompetence, and probably annoyed by the fact that I was laughing about it.  We saw signs for the “touristic train” but nowhere to buy tickets.  Then we saw the poster for it in the window of a tourism bureau and went in.

“Can we buy tickets here for the tourist train?” asked Lynn.

The travel agent or whatever she was gave us a look.  “It is a trolley, not a train,” she said patronizingly.

Lynn is better with these kinds of situations than I am.  I go straight to sarcasm, but she holds fire, smiles, and gets what she wants.  “Oh I see, thank you, and can we buy tickets here?”

“No!” said the woman, as if it was a ridiculous question. “You must buy them at the ticket stand near the Burger King” and she waved her arm dismissively to the right.

We walked in that direction and, for about the fourth time, passed a tall building with an eagle on top.  We spied the Burger King and finally found the ticket kiosk across the street and half a block away.  Clutching our tickets triumphantly, we turned around and there—through a narrow alleyway—caught a glimpse of the Cathedral.

“We were walking past it all along!” Lynn said, exasperated.  We paid €4 and entered; this was only the crypt with the remains of Isabella and Ferdinand, their daughter Joanna “the Mad” and her husband, Philip “the Handsome”.

We paid another €5 to get into the Cathedral itself, and it was yet another mind boggling gilded monument built with plunder from the colonies.

We got lost again, and found a pretty pavilion where we sat in the sun and had a late lunch.

We had been walking a lot on cobblestones and cement, and the thought of hiking back up the hill to our hotel was daunting.  Miraculously, Lynn saw a bus approaching, knew it was the right route, and in 10 minutes we were back in our room.  It had been a good day; now to rest up for the Alhambra tomorrow.

This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

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Day Two in Granada.  We had breakfast in the hotel, which provided quite a spread.  There were suspicious items like greyish “Chickens Sasage,” but also smoked salmon.  I knew what I would be having for breakfast for five days.

There was one of those machines that makes regular coffee, espresso, cappuccino, tea, hot chocolate, and six other things. It all comes out of one spout, and somehow it’s always good.  The girl in me who grew up with skim milk and Folgers Crystals and no second helpings comes out at times like this.  I could have stayed in the dining room all day drinking different coffee and coco drinks until they asked me to leave.  Lynn would have gone to the room and put the chain on the door long before.

Fortunately there was also a coffee maker in the room, so I could continue my caffeine-ating while we discussed what to do that day.

I don’t know if men do this too, but here’s how it often is with women trying to decide what to do.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t care—what do you want to do?”

“I don’t care.  How about the Superhumungous Museum?”

“Uhh … I guess so …”

“You don’t sound too keen.”

“Well I had hoped to go to the Smallish Museum.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“Well I don’t really mind what we do.”

When clearly, she does mind.  On and on it goes.  People trying to be nice are so irritating.

That’s not how it is with Lynn and me.  We’re flexible but know what we don’t want to do.  Which reminded me, I was going to have to come clean about the Flamenco dancing and say I would go, but only if we sat way in back where there would be no chance they would pull into an audience participation demonstration.  I talk a good game about being assertive, but I fully acknowledge how hard it can be.

We decided to check out the Jose Rodriguez Acosta Museum we had passed the previous afternoon.  The tickets were timed; ours were for 10:00 am so we had half an hour to kill.  We perused the art books on display and I got excited to see Acosta’s paintings, many of which featured Gitanos (gypsies, or Roma).

We were the only visitors.  We chatted with the two young women at the desk.  They were both art history majors and lucky to have jobs here, they said.  We went out to the patio and enjoyed the view. If only there was a coffee machine.

Finally, our tour began. One of the young women came out and led us down some stairs and outdoors.  It turned out that the place was a carmen, or formal gardens.  Acosta was from a wealthy family and built it for other artists.  No one was here in the winter, our guide said, but artists came to live and work in residencies at other times of the year.  Hmmm.  I would be glad to live there during “the winter,” as they called it—sunny and 65F.

We walked through the gardens, then down into the catacombs than ran beneath the complex.

These went for miles and connected to the Alhambra and other carmens so people could have secret assignations and so on, I guess.  It wasn’t completely clear.

We climbed back up to the street level and entered a tiny museum.  “Acosta’s works are in the Carlos V Museum in the Alhambra,” our guide informed us.  “But here you will find many important works by other artists, many of whom are unknown.”

I’ve said I’m not an art critic, but after the Vatican Museum, the Borghese Gallery, and the Prado, I didn’t need a PhD in Art History to question why they would call these “important” works.  Our guide stood by while we politely looked at the motley collection of crucifixes and Madonnas and martyrs, many by “Anonymous.”

Well, never mind!  The gardens were worth the five euro admission, and we could see Acosta’s work at the Alhambra the next day.