The Road to Granada

Sometimes when travelling, the unexpected path is the best one to take. There are several options for getting from Valencia to Granada, but I decided to take the "slow" bus as this gave me the best opportunity for viewing the countryside. Coincidently, it was also the cheapest. Most people opt to fly or take the high speed train. This gets you to Granada in a few hours, whereas my trip took 10 1/2 hours. I now have a very flat and numb bottom, that just may never recover. Part of the reason the trip took so long was it stopped at many towns on the way. The other reason was there was no services on the bus so we had to stop for toilet breaks, drinks and food. This seemed to occur every hour to hour and a half, some for only 5 mins but two stops for 30 minutes. In all, we had over 1 1/2 hours of stops between Valencia and Granada.

Flat bottoms and long day aside, it was a wonderful way to see the spectacular Spanish countryside. From towering mountains, rugged cliffs, to open dry semi-desert country & sparse vegetation, to lush vegetation, snow capped peaks and terraced olive groves. The only difficulty was that getting photos was almost impossible with the sun's glare on the windows of the bus.  Hence I only got a couple close to Granada which really do not do justice to the scope of the landscape.

Anyway, the good news is I've arrived in Granada and I have tomorrow to explore before having to make my way back to school and further study. I'm here for 8 weeks so I hope to get to see the amazing Moorish architecture and other cities like Cordoba, Sevilla, Cadiz etc. I pretty sure I will enjoy this part of Spain very much.



Landscape close to Granada.