Basic Tourist

Our first two days in Granada were spent marching up and down hills through an indecipherable tangle of narrow streets whose cobbles were made from a peculiarly slippery rock. 

We were chasing down a number of old courtyard houses, medieval bathhouses and baroque churches. Each one had to be arrived at within the rubric of their opening hours. 

Especially as we now both had coughs, it sometimes felt like hard work.

On the third day, we had a timed ticket to the Alhambra Palace, perhaps the main goal of our whole trip to Andalusia.

The Alhambra Palace turned out to be the ultimate tourist experience - beautifully maintained paths, capacious aseos (loos) clear maps and signposts.

The only initiative required is to hold one's ground as the guided parties stampede through, stabbing at their phone cameras. Their philosophy seems to be that any wonder of nature or architecture looks much better with THEM in front of it.

As the crowd departs, minutes later in a whirl of dust, one may snatch a few tranquil moments in each perfectly proportioned courtyard, listening to the ripple of the fountains.

We pottered all day on the well-marked paths, and I revelled in the effortlessness of being just your basic tourist.

Shangri-La

 I used to love climbing mountains, mainly in the Lake District.  I loved the views, the pared back landscape of grass and scree with the occasional stunted thorn bush.  The blue distance and the feeling of open sky above.

However, over twenty years ago we moved to the south east, so the mountains got more distant.  Then our regular B&B shut down.  Then I got back and foot problems and gradually gave up hope I would ever again reach the summit. 

However, I’ve walked lots during Lockdown and was keen to try a mountain again. But, in Herts we are low on hills so I was far from confident about a steep climb.  I also had to buy new boots – not wise just before a tough walk.

Luckily, Nigel had climbed mountains more recently and was game for carrying our daysack (and possibly me, if the need arose).

So we booked a long weekend in a hotel in Borrowdale and agreed to tackle Great Gable (899m).  I stipulated that this time we would not be descending by Aaron’s Slack (a scree of constantly moving rocks). 

I was fine going up – my boots didn’t rub.  My feet and back held out well.  I wasn’t even out of breath.

Coming down, one of my knees really hurt, but even that was more because I’d injured it the day before.

In triumph, we sent the offspring our selfie from the summit.

“Great!” said Carenza, “And you both look so young!”

So maybe that’s where Shangri-La really is – at the top of Great Gable.