Erin's Madrid journals
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Erin's Granada Journals
6-13-02

This was our last day in Granada, so we decided to go to the Cathedral as one chore and to download photos again as the other main chore. First though, we needed to square away the train arrangements. We got a later start than we'd planned, but that's nothing new any more. We walked down to the train station, and on the way, stopped into a flea market we found. I did finally buy some of the lightweight, intricately carved silver earrings I'd been admiring since Sevilla, and bartered the guy down too, so I was pleased.

Once at the train station, we spent some time with the information officer to find out options for our trip from Madrid to San Sebastian and from there, back to Milan. He was very nice and gave us the very useful information that the train schedules would be changing as of the 16th, so we knew we'd have to readdress the timing in Madrid once the new schedules were up and running. We reserved seats to Madrid for the next morning and headed out to find lunch.

I'd seen a place near the train station, and we sat outside in hopes of seeing Stephanie and Chris pass by on their way to the Alhambra. We knew they were arriving around 2pm, and that they only had a very short time in town (5 hours or so), so we wanted to see if we could meet them again, as we'd missed them in Sevilla. But no luck, and by the time we got back to our hotel, it was 3pm. They'd left a message with our hotel owner to meet them at the Alhambra at 3pm, so we knew we'd never make it before they went in, and we'd already been there. We quickly went over to the internet cafe to see if there were details about whether or not they'd decided to spend the night, but to no avail. We sent them a 'sorry we missed you' and headed on to the Cathedral.

First we detoured to see if we could exchange our used books for new ones, but the shop wouldn't reopen until 5:30, so we returned and entered the Cathedral. Having seen lots of beautiful cathedrals now, this one was great but nothing special. The distinguising factor here was the crypts and coffins of Ferdinand & Isabel, as well as the king & queen before them. Called the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand & Isabel are known for being very unpopular and rather brutal rulers, responsible for many murders and public executions in their revival of the Inquisition, as well as for the beneficial commissioning of Christopher Columbus' historic journey of discovery.

After this, we returned to the used book store and gratefully traded 3 of our books for 2 new ones. Glenn has been surprising me with his newfound lust for reading. He's been burning through book after book, and I've had trouble providing him new material! Then we did a little souvenier shopping since we were reaching the final couple of weeks of the trip.

Around 7pm, we went to the internet spot we'd located near the hotel and downloaded photos. Glenn got me set up with the files and the software to reduce picture sizes, then went off to the hotel to work on catching up with his journals. We were both getting very behind since leaving Italy (and yes, even before that), and he was doing a great job of getting caught up. I resized almost 70 photos and uploaded them to the website file manager, but by then it was 9:30pm and I didn't have time to make any web pages to display them. We met for dinner and enjoyed a pretty filling meal, then went back and went to bed early, since our train to Madrid would leave before 8am (very early for us any more!).
Glenn's Granada journals
Granada's Cathedral, which houses the coffins & treasure of the so-called Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand & Isabel
Granada main page
Madrid main page