More Moors!

 Once again I woke up before my alarm and headed up to the gym, but only for stretch class, once again with Adriaan, because we needed to be in the Vista lounge at 8:20 for our tour. So we headed down there after a quick breakfast in the Lido, and then off to our tour. Spain is in the same time zone as the rest of western Europe, but it’s much further west, so the sun rises very late – it was just coming over the horizon as we headed out to our bus at 8:30.

We don’t normally do the big bus tours, but I have wanted to visit the Alhambra since high school, and this may have been my only chance. Reading the reviews for this tour the biggest complaint was that the tour guides weren’t good, but we got very lucky with Sergio, who was born in Barcelona (so sometimes he called it the Thouth of Thpain) but has lived here a very long time. He was funny and knowledgeable and easy to understand, except when he forgot what day it was and started to speak German (Germans were yesterday). The Alhambra is an hour and 45 minutes from where we docked by bus, with a 15 minute “technical stop” about halfway to use the aseos. We spent about two hours touring the grounds, towers, and palaces. The Alhambra was the last Moorish outpost in Spain, and the architecture is primarily Moorish, except where it isn’t. So there are amazing carvings and tiles and decorations covering practically every inch of the buildings – many of the walkways even are made of different color stones laid out in patterns. Another thing about it is that there are fountains and running water everywhere, so you always have the sound of water in your ears. As Dave pointed out, in the desert (and make no mistake, this part of Spain is a desert), watery is a true sign of wealth. We went “slowly but surely,” as Sergio told us, because “accidents are not allowed.”

The Alhambra is a very crowded place – apparently they average about 7,000 visitors a day. Our tickets would get us in the main entrance between 11:30 and 11:59, but after that they’d be useless. So Sergio had to do a lot of shepherding the 30 people in our group, but he always had something to talk about while we re-bunched, so it wasn’t a problem. We also had what he called “whisperers” – he had a microphone and a broadcasting unit, and we had earphones and receivers, so as long as you didn’t get too far from him you had his voice right in your ear (or ears, in my case, since I had brought my own headset). It’s a very cool thing and I think that every tour should have them. At the end when we took them off I felt very lost!

Next stop was a restaurant with a reasonably good lunch buffet and people wearing authentic garb playing all your Spanish favorites. I can’t tell you what era or country their vaguely middle-ages looking clothes were from, but I can tell you that it looked very odd when we saw one of them drive off on his motorbike, helmet, velvet, hose & all. We had about half an hour after lunch to visit the couple of tourist shops. We did not buy the very nice dope smoking kit, but I did get a t-shirt. Then we found a shady place and sat and read until the bus came. The Alhambra is at about 2,800 feet above sea level and so it was much cooler than where we’ve been, but even up there it was hot in the sun.

I mostly slept on the ride home; Dave read on his kindle. We got back to the ship a little after 5, so I had time for a quick shower before dinner. Everybody was there tonight, even though the ship doesn’t leave port until 10:30 so the dining room was partly empty. We had our usual good time. Tonight’s surprising revelation is that before he married Pam, Jeff spent a year supporting himself playing blackjack. Paula tried the oxtail but found it too fatty. Dinner overall was just good – the least interesting meal we’ve had on the ship so far. I’m hoping it was because they figured many people would be eating ashore.

There’s no show tonight, so after dinner we took a walk around the promenade deck (it’s a beautiful night!) and went down to the ocean bar to listen to Paige and the HalCats, which on other cruises has been one of our favorite things to do before dinner. But we have been rushing about like crazy people and haven’t had time. Then it was time to go listen to the BB King band, who were swinging even better, but neither of us could keep our eyes open. We decided to make it an early night and go hang out on our balcony. We are excited that tomorrow is our last shore day before two sea days and the Azores – this cruising is exhausting!

Tonight’s towel animal: squid