November 8, Tuesday.

El Torcal

Not good sleep last night. This almost always happens my second night in Europe because I go to bed in Europe time and wake up in U.S. Eastern Time. Habit. We drove the Tesla high up over hair-pin turn roads into the beautiful and almost surreal Alpujarras mountains into El Torcal national park. This place was like walking into the deserts of Utah except at the top of a mountain, its limestone rock formations absolutely stunning. Amanda had never been here, though it is only about an hour and a half from her house.

We took a 45 minute hike through the amazing rock formations. Not too far in, a German woman in a couple committed the cardinal sin of looking up at the incredible sites while walking on the rock-laden path—extremely easy to do—and she fell, and it looked like she really hurt herself. I ran to her aid and I thought I was going to have to help carry her out of there. But her husband and I lifted her up and it seemed she was mostly in shock; she could still walk, after limping around. When we finished this stunning mini-hike I realized I no longer had my sunglasses. They must still be where I helped the fallen woman. Oh well…

On to Grenada, Amanda’s favorite Spanish city, where first we checked into our hotel (adjoining rooms) and then took a taxi into the old section of the city, and we walked up, up, up through narrow streets teeming with exotic shops through the Arabic area and on up in the dark to an overlook where we saw the amazing, lit up Alhambra castle area across the valley. Absolutely majestic.

Then we walked down again through different narrow streets with more exotic shops, stopped to have a Tapas dinner with deeply fried food that neither of us had known we ordered, then took a taxi back to the hotel. I can see why Amanda loves Granada so much, with the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the background. This was the best day yet.