NOTE TO READERS: Former Clay County, Fla., school board member Wayne Bolla is on a sailing trip to the Mediterranean Sea, along with a couple of friends. He will chronicle his adventures in an occasional article on this web site. This is the third article, a visit to Granada, Spain.

By WAYNE BOLLA

Granada

The winner takes all and gets to tell everyone what happened. According to the Spanish, the last Moorish king to govern Granada surrendered the fortress Alhambra to the Spanish without a fight, and “cried like a baby” as he left paradise on earth.

We arrived at the airport aboard a Vueling Airlines commuter jet from Barcelona, Spain.

The Fortress Alhambra overlooking Granada at night. (Photo by Wayne Bolla)

Most Americans, of my generation will ask, “Why didn’t you take the train?” In Europe right now there is something of a price war going on between the railways and the Airlines. Flying, as in America, is roughly half the price of getting there by rail and a whole lot faster. A three euro bus ride brought us from the airport to the central business district with lots of new construction on the outskirts of the city and  stately four- to five-story older buildings downtown.

Our 50 euros hotel, the Molinos, turned out to be clean but a bit noisy. If you find yourself sitting around your hotel wishing you had a fancier room, it’s probably time to get up off of that thing and go do something.  The first order of business after the bus let us out on the Grand Via was to stop at the nearest newsstand and get a map so we could find our hotel. The second was to ask from the guy we bought the map from for directions. I read some place that you could get by in Spain on about 138 words of Spanish. With that I can just about carry on a conversation with the neighbor’s 3-year-old.  So when the next foreign tourist says to you with an anxious look on his face, “I like toileta?” give him a break.

A Granada street scene. (Photo by Wayne Bolla)

Most of the older sections of the cities in Spain are part of or were built over Roman ruins with narrow streets, which, although fairly straight, seldom run parallel to each other. After getting lost the second time, we spotted a young mother trying to negotiate a baby carriage down a flight of stairs.  After helping her we pointed on our new map to where we wanted to go and in perfect English she said just follow me.  She turned out to be from Southern California studying Spanish at the University of Granada. Granada has one of the biggest and best universities in all of Europe and has the feel of maybe Gainesville, Florida, or Madison, Wisconsin. Granada has a big student population with lots of young people and many businesses catering to the student condition.

That night we walked most of the way through narrow terraced residential streets to the walls of the Alhambra. On these walls graffiti has reached almost to a fine art form.  On the way down we stopped at an outdoor restaurant complex set up in the church courtyard. Maybe four cafes, which seemed to be working out

A restaurant on the way down from the Alhambra. (Photo by Wayne Bolla)

of the same kitchen, an apartment that opened onto a side street off the square.  I suspect dad worked the bar, the son was the waiter, and mom worked the kitchen.  She sure could cook!

A Little History

Granada, founded in pre-historic times, is located in the foot hills of Sierra Nevada Mountain chain in southern Spain, about 60 miles north of the channel that separates Europe from Africa. It has a great mix of new and old and each neighborhood has a unique feel. The Romans took over from the Visigoths, the Moors took over from the Romans, and then the Spanish took over from the Moors in 1492. It was a very good year for Ferdinand and Isabelle.

Parks andgarden at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, one of the largest tourist attractions in Spain. (Photo by Wayne Bolla)

The Alhambra

By far the biggest and best attraction is the site of the Moorish Kings seat of government, the Alhambra.

You have to reserve tickets via the internet to get into parts of the Alhambra. Unlike Disney, they strictly limit the number of guests that are in sections of the Alhambra so you get a much higher quality of experience than jamming through serene spaces with 300 other babbling tourists. My impression was that the Alhambra was one of the first planned communities, combining a fort for security, private palace residents for the best of the best, and common gardens/parks throughout the complex. There was a common plumbing system in this near desert environment that to this mechanical engineer was nothing short of awesome. Every major room in the King’s palace had a “water feature.”

Granada was recommended to us by at least two “experienced” travelers as a not to miss place in Spain.  It has my vote.

NOTE TO READERS: Former Clay County, Fla., school board member Wayne

Wayne Bolla is in the middle of a cruise aboard his boat, Pipe Dream, to the Mediterranean Sea. He is writing a series of articles for the Wandering Tourist web site.

Bolla is on a sailing trip to the Mediterranean Sea, along with a couple of friends. He will chronicle his adventures in an occasional article on this web site. This is the second part of his stopover in Bermuda.

By WAYNE BOLLA

While on the island of Bermuda, we either walked or used the bus to get around on land. For about $10 Bermuda you can get a weekly bus ticket from the local internet cafe. The bus is also a great way to get a feel for how the regular folks live on the island. You get the feeling that everything is neat and buttoned down in Bermuda. I did a double take when I noticed a well-dressed, older gentlemen walking toward me on the sidewalk. He was dressed in a blue, buttoned-down dress shirt, blue blazer, reddish school tie and whitish Bermuda shorts, with knee-high blue socks and black dress loafers. I noticed

similar combinations in other parts of the island. I was ready to buy a pair of the shorts and some knee socks but then pictured myself in my old Boy Scout summer uniform . . . in public!

The quest for refrigeration parts, and a new VHF antennas took us to Hamilton, the capital city of Bermuda. It was about a 20-minute bus ride from St. Georges, accessible by boat from St Georges, but only through a fairly complicated series of channel passages best left to the locals.  Getting off the bus we navigated our way to the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce to find out where the best boat store in town was located. I was greeted by a most knowledgeable and friendly woman who bent over backwards to recommend the best of the two possible boat stores on the island, a place for lunch, and a couple of don’t miss sights along our walking route. After marking all the recommendations on the map of beautiful downtown Hamilton she gave us, we were off and running. I asked a ‘chap’ with a distinct British accent at the boat store if I should buy a Bermuda courtesy flag. These are small flags flown from the starboard yardarm (right side midway up the mast) that prove you were courteous enough to at least get through customs.

Continue Reading »

Wayne Bolla is in the middle of a cruise aboard his boat, Pipe Dream, to the Mediterranean Sea. He is writing a series of articles for the Wandering Tourist web site.

NOTE TO READERS: Former Clay County, Fla., school board member Wayne Bolla is on a sailing trip to the Mediterranean Sea, along with a couple of friends. He will chronicle his adventures in an occasional article on this web site.

By WAYNE BOLLA

Some of my favorite sailing stories can be found in the Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester. Most of the yarns are set during the Napoleonic Wars between 1800 and 1815. Forester does a great job researching history, sailing lore, and geography. Visiting some of the places he writes about is not a bad way to plan a present-day sailing adventure. England, however, is tough to get to on a sailing boat.  There is only about a two-month weather window for what I consider recreational sailing, and unless you are sailing to test your storm gear or the toughness of your crew, it is not the best of cruising grounds. The next best thing to sailing to England might be Bermuda.  It is only about 650 miles off the U.S. coast, they speak English there, and thanks to the gulfstream, it is warm most of the time.

The 20 square miles of the Bermuda islands was the first leg of our 4,000-mile cruise to the Mediterranean. It was discovered in 1503, settled around 1612 and is the oldest overseas British territory. In fact, it was a strategic naval base during much of Britain’s colonization of the Americas.  Spain had already become well established in much of the southern Americas and Britain made the strategic decision to focus on the northern parts of the Americas. Besides, it was all that was left as Spain had gotten there first and decided it was inhabited by devils – likely the call of a native blue jay type bird. Bermuda was an ideal base for northern points in the new world. The only drawback being it’s small size and relatively low land mass profile, which made it a feat of 1700’s navigational technology to find.

Continue Reading »