Island Hopping 2024: Toledo to Grenada, King Charles V, Paradores

We were leaving Toledo today, a day I was dreading.  Not because we were leaving Toledo, though I certainly would have enjoyed more time there, but because I now would have to drive us out of that place.  First problem was to walk to the car which I’m pretty sure I had parked somewhere in Portugal.  After walking though historic Toledo, then down the zig zag cobblestone roads/paths, across an ancient footbridge over the river and down a path on the riverbank I pretty much by accident found the rental car.  The problem was only half solved because now I had to drive back up the hill, through that “mouse-maze” of ridiculously narrow streets to the AirBnB where our luggage and my wife were waiting.  Got it done, and we were on our way.

                                                         A door along the path to the car

                                                          One of my last views of Toledo

There is nothing like a roadtrip.  The road itself is a destination. It is a thread that weaves together the tapestry of lands and the peoples that it passes by.  On this section of our Spanish Road trip, the highway takes us from the medieval embrace of Toledo to the heart of Moorish civilization on the Iberian peninsula, Alhambra.  Along the way under rainy skies we watched the green Castilian Plains give way to hilly olive groves.  More like olive forests for as far as the eye could see.  Eventually this olive forest went straight up the sides of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Some olive trees have been documented to have lived over a thousand years.  That means that some of these gnarly, twisted trees were here to witness the Moors racing across Spain in their initial invasion only to see the Christian forces slowly push them back. 

Three and a half months of travel, two people, that is our luggage

We saw several hilltop castles along the way

A line of windmills ready to do battle with Don Quixote 

Sierra Nevadas

                                           Hill after hill, mile after mile of olive trees

We are staying at the Parador de Grenada.  It is inside the gates of the Alhambra.  The Building we are in was initially built by the Moors.  After the reconquest it became a Franciscan convent and now a government owned and run hotel.  Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were actually buried in the convent and then they were moved to the Cathedral in Grenada a number of years later. 

Charles V palace, not quite a ruins, not ready to move into

Charles V palace

Staircase in palace

The upper hallway

View of Sierra Nevada from terrace

Main entrance to palace

Gardens outside our Parador