We are heading for Granada via our favourite supermarket car park in Spain. It's probably best to consider these two things separately because the only tenuous connection between the two is that the latter by a quirk of geography happens to be half way to the former.
If you are travelling in Spain during the winter by motorhome the most sensible way to think about a trip to Granada is to see it as a pleasant optional extra, somewhere to head for in a spell of unusually warm and settled weather. Otherwise you risk getting, as an American might put it, your ass frozen off. The city lies at 738m at the foot of Pico de Valeta, the second highest mountain in Iberia. During the winter months it's quite normal for daytime temperatures to fail to reach double digits and during the night plummet to a few degrees below zero. Precisely the kind of climate we drive thousands of miles south to avoid.
However, this kind of commonsense detail escaped me during the last couple of days before Christmas as I went into panic mode about finding a present for my nearest and dearest. After 48 previous attempts you might think I would have become better at this, but in fact it gets trickier with every passing year. Last Christmas's last minute panic resulted in the purchase of of a voucher for Granada's 'hammam' - which offers a contemporary take on an Arabic era bathhouse. We visited it previously in 2015 when Gill's sister bought us a 'spa experience' for Gill's sixtieth. It was not something we would have chosen ourselves, but proved enjoyable. So now with another voucher to spend going to Granada was no longer optional and as the forecast for next few days looked a little less cold than recently, off we went.
The distance between Jerez and Granada is about 300kms, doable in a day, but we also needed to stock up in life's essentials so we decided to break the journey in Osuna. 'Family Cash' is a big discount supermarket on the outskirts of town, considerably cheaper even than Lidl or Aldi. Even better, one corner of its enormous car park is designated as an area autocaravanas with a well designed service point. The place has a nice view of the nearby hills covered in olive groves. Occasionally shepherds herd their flocks along a nearby dirt track. You can see why the place is superior to a typical Tesco Extra, and how you might even become sentimental about it even if it is just a car park.
When we first stopped here the shop was an Eroski and there were only ever a couple of other motorhomes drawn up. Today there were a dozen or so, we are not the place's only aficionados, but shopping would have to wait until tomorrow, the store was closed for Andalucia Day.
So we took a stroll into town. What makes the place famous is its vernacular architecture. Scattered around the narrow white streets are a dozen or more large mansions dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Larger than townhouses but not exactly palaces they are evidence of a wealthy merchant class. This was not typical of Spain at the time which tended to be split between aristocracy and peasantry. The development of this bourgeois enclave contributed in the mid 1700s to a small scale Spanish enlightenment with men of letters discussing secular philosophy, albeit under the watchful eye of the Inquisition.
Osuna is a handsome town but not very relaxing. Most streets are narrow and cobbled with pavements that demand you walk single file. The locals drivers bomb along them at quite alarming speeds, today especially. Everybody had been out for a big family lunch and our late afternoon walk coincided with the moment people decided to head home. Filled with whatever is the Andalucian equivalent joie de vivre and emboldened by a few glasses of sherry the drivers upped the anti from suicidal to murderous. It was like trying to take a relaxing stroll in Naples. We arrived back at the van mildly traumatised but in one piece.
Maybe not everyone was so luck. The area autocaravanas is next to an enormous hospital. Soon after we got back a yellow air ambulance helicopter swooped low across the car park and landed in the hospital grounds.
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Next day we did our big shop in Family Cash then headed off towards Granada. The A92 runs west into ever more mountainous terrain. North of Antequera it gets very craggy. Spain's high speed railway, the LAV runs parallel with the motorway, it's a remarkable piece of engineering. In total Spain has over 3400km of track capable of taking trains with a maximum speed of 300kph, the most in Europe and second in the world after China.
To put this into perspective at the moment the UK has 108kms of high-speed track. HS 2 to Birmingham will add a further 230kms by 2033, and if the branches to Manchester and Leeds are ever completed the UK's high speed network will total about 600kms by the mid 2040s. Whatever happened to our ambition?
As we approached Granada the snow covered Sierra Nevada dominated the horizon. We were heading for La Zubia, a satellite town a few kilometres south of the city. Camping Reina Isabella no longer accepts ACSI and now costs almost €30 per night, but the regular bus service into Granada make it the simplest option. Also it has a heated shower block, more or less a necessity during the winter months. It's an attractive small site with hacienda styled buildings. The only downside is the pitches are barely big enough for a 7m van and the access roads narrow with tight turns.
Our session at the hammam was scheduled for 2pm. We headed into the city around 11ish, giving us time to have an early lunch. There are two Granadas, the modern one encircles the old. It looks prosperous, signature buildings of tech and finance firms scattered among modern apartment blocks and big malls, multiplexes and a brand new municipal sports complex adjacent to the football stadium. Since we were here last the road system has been improved including, as we noted in Jerez, a well developed cycling infrastructure. It's all very impressive.
Old Granada is dominated by the Alhambra on one hill with the old Arab quarter of Albaicin on the one opposite. The medieval city and later nineteenth century developments spread out beyond towards the Rio Genil. The bus from La Zubia dropped us at a big conference centre next to the river. It was about 1.6km to the hammam situated in an old building at the foot of the hill leading up to the Alhambra.
Our plan was to find somewhere to have a light lunch before our ritual dunking. TripAdvisor lists 1349 restaurants in Granada but quantity is no guarantee of quality. Almost 3 million tourists visit the Alhambra annually. One thing mass tourism more or less ensures is mediocre food.
Last time we were here we came across a food market in the old streets behind the cathedral. Mercato San Agustin, Like Lisbon's 'Time Out' it's a former produce market re-invented as a food hall with bars cafés and 'pop-ups'. 'La Picateria' had reasonable reviews and offered a brunch menu which is what we wanted. The sandwiches were ok, not memorable - not bad.
The service was somewhat chaotic mainly due to a hi-tec ordering system that the teenage staff seemed flummoxed by. It was a small place with too many tables squeezed in, which was fine at first as we were the only customers. Then a group of about eight British tourists arrived accompanied by guide, some kind of city walking tour with a tapas experience thrown in. Entertainment!
The only way for the group to reach their table was for the pair of us, mid lunch, to stand aside and let them squeeze through. It became obvious immediately that the group was suffering a level of acute collective social awkwardness that only Brits abroad can achieve. "Sorry, Sorry, Sorry!" each one muttered as they passed. Eight tourists multiplied by the two of us meant in less than half a minute we were apologized to 48 times, that's almost a rate of 100apm. (apologies per minute) which even by British standards of misguided deference must be some kind of record.
There was a short awkward silence, then one of the group, a slightly rotund oldish chap sporting a recently purchased fedora, asked the guide what was the correct way to order tapas. The explanation was identical to one contained in the AA guidebook to Spain that we purchased in 1981 - that tapas are free snacks offered when you order drinks, one drink = one tapas, then another when you order a second drink. Sometimes you have a choice, sometimes you have to accept what you are given. I imagine this is how things were a generation ago, but in our travels in Spain over the past decade we have never come across this arrangement. We have always ordered and paid for tapas off a menu, usually having one drink then a 'cortado' after we have eaten. It struck me that if employed as a city walking guide you could spout any old bollocks because the people who desire to be guided are generally clueless anyway and have no way of sorting fact from fiction. Or they are Americans, which amounts to the same thing.
Time to take a bath. Initially, as we booked into Hammam Al Ándalus it seemed the set-up was more or less the same as the last time we were here in 2015. It soon transpired that things had moved on somewhat. Alternative therapies have been around for decades but somewhere along the line they morphed into a burgeoning 'wellness industry'. A bit of beauty therapy, a dollop of complimentary medicine, a soupçon of veganism, a miasma of Eastern mysticism, yogic practice and psychobabble - wellness messaging comes at us daily, hyped by social media influencers and TikTok starlets. The Hammam had adjusted its proposition accordingly.
After booking-in we were ushered into a small barrel vaulted anteroom with bench seats for a short induction. A film looped on the far wall showing a person of fluid gender with a shaved head, dressed in a loose white robe.
They danced expressively through a wooded landscape, then led a horse up a track, the camera zoomed in slowly on the horse's head which filled the entire wall somewhat menacingly. The anteroom became more crowded, each new guest led in by a hammam elf dressed in loose overalls with flappy yoga pants and a vest top. The garment was rust coloured like the devotees of Hari Krisna used to wear. I think the uniform was meant to denote spirituality.
Another elf appeared and placed a neatly folded grey towel on each person's lap, then a copper bowl. He sprayed aromatic liquid into our cupped hands which we duly washed in the copper bowl. I don't recall any of these mysterious rituals happening on our last visit. Then we were led through to the changing rooms, boys to the left, girls to the right. Stripping off among strangers, I am not bashful, but it is a tad awkward nevertheless.
The entire place is dimly lit, but the baths themselves were definitely semi-dark, illuminated only by candlelight. It is an impressive pastiche, the elegant Arabic arched interior with slender columns and authentic looking patterned tiles. There are four pools, cool, tepid, hot and a small swimming pool that filled with steam from time to time.
You can choose to use the various pools as you wish. A calm atmosphere pervades the place, guests are asked to speak quietly, relaxing music plays softly, mainly solo piano, the style minimalist-lite, like Max Richter's 'Sleep' reinterpreted by Liberace. Rust garbed elves drifted by from time to time. Clearly they have all been trained to adopt a slow gait exuding tranquility, upper body still, arms relaxed by their sides, small, thoughtful steps; maybe it was intended to be calming but it looked somewhat zombified.
In all there must have been about fifteen of us, hard to say because every so often people who had opted for for an additional treatment were spirited away. However with us all relaxing in one of four relatively compact pools familiar faces reappeared from time to time...
The white faced man with a shaved head who always occupied the far right corner of the pool, he stared unblinkingly into nowhere, I became worried he may have died. Then there was the German family, a couple about fortyish with their daughter who looked about seven. She was remarkably well behaved. The three of them spent much of the time massaging one another's temples. I came across an athletic looking chap with a spectacularly tattooed left leg so many times I became convinced he was secretly keeping an eye on me. Perhaps I looked shifty. Also there were several youngish women, their faces looked different but they all seemed to have the same slender, slightly willowy body, healthy but unathletic. Maybe if you go vegan and follow a yoga regime you end up looking the same, like people who work-out get gym bodies, there is also a 'wellness shape'.
Finally there was the elderly pair, at least quarter of a century older than anyone else. They stuck together, helped each other in and out of the pools, whispered a lot and seemed slightly amused by all the goings-on. Yes, that would be us!
Finally our ninety minutes were up. In truth I was ready to go, for the last half hour I had begun to amuse myself by trying to estimate the number of tiles in each room. The music began to grate too especially when the piano was replaced by a vaguely oriental sounding woodwind instrument. The experience was interesting rather than fun, the pair of us are too sceptical to be able to take the experience seriously. However, it is definitely relaxing, exhausting even.
We took a slow stroll back to the bus stop pausing for a gelato at a place which purported to be Italian but probably wasn't. By now it was late afternoon, quite chilly, but a golden light illuminated the Sierra Nevada's snowy peaks.
In the park by the river there is a monument to flamenco - singer, guitarist and dancer placed dramatically on a tall pedestal, beyond, three slender cypresses planted strategically mirrored the ensemble. To the left, pale as a cuttlefish bone, a gibbous moon dangled, barely visible in the deep blue sky.
We all need things to sustain us, to lift our spirits and affirm that life can be good. For some people the pursuit of health makes them happy. The Hammam experience, which we found a little contrived and inadvertently comic others find uplifting. I enjoy simply watching the world go by, I am intrigued by the vagaries of human culture and uplifted by the natural world. Gill is similar but is more scientifically minded. Why then did I think buying us the opportunity to sit in a bath in the dark for a couple of hours would make a good Christmas present? I apologised and promised that if I ever was tempted again to lavish a 'novel experience' upon my nearest and dearest, I would ensure it was edible and memorably delicious.
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