Spain 13/7

More trains, more countryside - travelling into the hills this time headed for Granada. I am hoping that the height above sea level will reduce the temperature a bit. We have coped pretty well with it but it is a bit draining after a while, as anyone who has been in a Melbourne swelter will know. Em tells me this sounds bit like what I did in my holidays essay. Oh, well, that's what it is in a way. We have so little news from elsewhere - all the TV channels in the hotels have been in Spanish. We watch anyway and try sometimes to work out what the news is about. All this week it has been about bull running in Pamplona, we just cannot tell if they are running them over and over, just reporting on this year or trying to have them banned. We have picked up enough Spanish or can work out enough words to sometimes have a real stab at it. Of course there is no one to correct us so we must be right. We have a look at the Age from time to time, and Rob has bookmarked the football results page. He bought the English Daily Tele and I bought The times to read last time we had a train ride. Today it is the Tele, but I buy nothing. I have also finished the three books I brought with me and will have a look for something else. Not easy in the Spanish book shops. Perhaps I should have bought that e-reader after all. Train trip is very different this time as the terrain is not flat by any means. We are obviously climbing up and up. The station in Granada is very small we think for a town this size, but I suppose it really depends on the number of trains that stop here each day really. We can see the Sierra Nevada of course and the exposed rocks at the top look a little like snow. No hope of snow this time or year of course. The town is hilly and we are not used to hills. Feel different muscles as we walk around. We hit the Cathedral of course and marvel at its opulence and the fantastically ornate altar pieces and vestments,etc. This is the first time we have not been allowed to take photos inside the church - or the Chapel Real attached to it (literally). Up until now we have been able to do so with abandon, no flash. It is a great shame as there is a lot worth taking pictures of. We give up the hunt for a small out of the way restaurant/bar to have lunch and fall prey to a rather charming young man who picks us as an easy mark for his restaurant. We do enjoy the food on the 'menu del dia' so it all works out of course. We wander around the alleyways and plazas as we meander back towards siesta. This seems to be much more a tourist town than the others we have been to, many more trashy souvenir shops and a lot of 'fly by night' traders. These are really 'fly by foot' traders as they have all their wares ready to gather up in a sheet or firmly attached to a board so that when they sprint off at the approach of the police they don't waste a minute getting out of the way. We have seen some of them who actually have everything displayed on the sort of circular mat with a drawstring around the edge that we had for lego in the good old days. Walking down to the river always seems like a good place to promenade but the locals seem to prefer the main street - probably because the shops are still open, or mayby just because. When we get to the river we see for the first time a crowd of young people just hanging round there with quite a lot of hard liquor. We move away from the river and promenade through a local park to a particularly attractive cafe in the park with plenty of shade. Shade is becoming our favourite thing everywhere. Fortunately there is plenty of it, to the extend that some shopping streets have shade cloths erected along them. Most of the streets are narrow enough to provide some shade most of the day. We have particularly enjoyed just meandering through towns with no real destination in mind, until we get hungry and then start looking in earnest for somewhere to eat. This time it is a small bar next door to a huge cafe. We order small and enjoy it. We refuse the offer of a menu in English, rising to the challenge of guessing what the Spanish menu is really offering. Success! We get exactly what we expect to get. We plan to come back to the huge Futbol Cafe before we leave. It looks bright and wonderfuland we wonder what it would have been like on THE futbol night of nights.