Granada

The second part of our Spain trip was centred around a wedding in Granada. Scott’s family drove us from Xàbia to Alicante Estación de Autobus, where we boarded an Alsa coach headed to Granada. The departure time came but the bus hadn’t arrived, then it disappeared from the board completely — it finally pulled up when we started to worry it wasn’t coming at all!

Our seats were comfy and air conditioning made the temperature more pleasant. We laughed at ourselves because only lasted 15 minutes before tucking into our bag of journey snacks.

A short break at Murica was just enough time to walk around the bus station and take a few photos. I’m glad we took our own food because the bus station options were pretty unappealing.

This curious cat slinked across the car park as soon as we pulled up to our final rest stop. It followed passengers returning from a quick leg stretch but the coach door hissed shut behind them, before the cat could step onboard. That didn’t stop it sitting and looking hopeful until we pulled away though. He or she appeared to be a stray so I secretly hoped it would successfully sneak onboard and come for an adventure.

We arrived in Granada at 6pm that evening, chucked our bags in the hotel, cranked up the air conditioning to make it feel more like Scandinavia, then went to meet our friends for dinner.

Most restaurants hadn’t yet opened for the evening (the Spanish eat late) but a small poke bowl place was serving. And then for the highlight… a gelateria called Martonela. We sat in there and chatted for most of the evening, and eyed up other flavours we wished our tummies had space for.

The next morning was a much needed slow start. There were only a few hours to explore Granada before heading off to the wedding, so we didn’t see a huge amount of the city. But we liked what we did see!

Many streets used shade canopies to counteract the urban heat island effect. This was excellent for shade seekers like us! It’s amazing how much difference a few pieces of cloth made; it was so much cooler underneath.

I would love some creative buddies to sit and sketch the city with.

We made our way towards Puente de Cabrera and walked around the old streets. Lots of narrow alleys, patterned cobbles, hidden courtyards and tiled roofs. It’s definitely somewhere I wish we’d had more time to explore.

Cool, stormy weather greeted us the morning after the wedding. The streets were deserted; no slow start for us through. We needed to get to the bus station, to begin our two hour journey to Málaga airport.

The airport bus pulled away just as heavy rain hit the city. Neither of us had coats, so we were relieved it held off that long.

The journey was much more scenic than we expected. Our coach snaked through small towns and villages, with fantastic mountain views for most of the way. I actually wondered if we were on the right coach at one point, because it really didn’t feel like we were heading towards an airport.

After getting through security, we only had enough time to eat before our gate was announced and boarding started. However, our plane ended up sitting on the tarmac for a while due to the incoming storm. Air traffic control decided to re-route most flights into a small corridor, which meant they had to reduce the number of planes in the air. We took off and then spiralled upwards for a while, before finally heading back towards beautiful Sweden.