THE ALHAMBRA

Navigating Granada in a rental car is not my idea of a fun way to spend a hot, overcast day. We were on a family holiday in Andalucia at the end of September last year, staying in the village of Montejaque just outside Ronda and had driven for the best part of three hours (with me in the middle seat with what I can only imagine was on-coming surprise sciatica in my backside) to be greeted by the endlessly barren industrial landscape that so often seems to welcome you to even the most beautiful of European cities. The route up to the fortress took us via the newer side of the town, through a labyrinth of increasingly narrow, one-way pedestrianised streets, inconclusive arrow-based signage and dead ends, up to a wide road that snakes all too slowly away from the grey plain of cranes and scaffolding and pink and white cement.