I had decided from London to rent a car for two days so as to venture out of town to a few places I wanted to visit or revisit. So the number 4 bus takes me on an interesting route to the station where Alamo have a car waiting for me.
Or have they? My reservation is all in order at the desk but they’ve just had a rush of bookings from incoming trains and it might take a few minutes to sort. I say fine, I’ll just use the loo and join them in the car park serving Granada’s train station. Would I like a Transit? No not with the streets I have to negotiate to get to the hotel’s parking partner. A recipe for excess charges for scrapes I reckon.
Eventually in a Citroen You, with a USB port to hook up my phone for SatNav, I’m off out of there. At the time of writing, after a day’s driving, I haven’t yet crunched the gears, but have hit the wipers when trying to indicate left. A lengthy suburban dual carriageway gets me quickly to the A92 a motorway I know well from its more westerly stretches as it links Almeria in the east to Antequera and Sevilla in the west. It’s not long before Dolores advises me to take the exit for Fuente Vaqueros, across flat farmland with great stands of poplars to the Casa Natal FGL – where he was born. There’s no tour for two hours – well it is winter and nowhere seems to just let you wander anymore.
I therefore head for Villarrubio where Lorca moved next in his young life and find that a tour has just started but that I can join them in the audiovisual barn where a three-screen projection shows us aspects of his life with actors recreating but not speaking and lots of shots of nature and butterflies – he was a big fan of mariposas.
We then move into the house where guide Ana tells lots about the family life of the time, his friends and neighbours and then lets us roam through the property. A smart salon, tiny kitchen and lumpy beds give a good impression of life at the turn of the 20th century.
But there’s a bonus as the trip next goes to a house in an adjacent street which was the inspiration for his play The House of Bernarda Alba. His family shared a well with neighbour, Frasquita Alba Serra, who seems to have been a domineering matron. Lorca admitted she was the prototype for Bernarda the irascible materfamilias who poisons her daughters’ lives in the play.
Before we go into the house there are further video presentations introducing the main characters in the play and acting out snippets from their scenes. It was informative and interesting especially for genuine students, but our random tour group got restless and started to move around. I suggested to Ana that she might keep to Bernarda and one other character per tour rather than all six. I’ll never know.
This has been fun and I find what appears to be the town’s only cafe for a much needed coffee. I chat to one the owners who says she might have had an English couple a few years back but is surprised to hear I’m from London. People tend to do the museum tour from coaches so Villarrubio sees little benefit. Sad.
I head back to Fuente Vaqueros to find the museum closed as it is nearly two – it’s official closing time and clearly no time for a tour. I’m not too bothered because Dee and I did get to see the house on our previous trip and will have photos at home – more rummaging in the loft! In contrast to Villarrubio, Fuente is all over Lorca. Is where you were born more important than where you started writing? Or is it just shrewd marketing?
The Bar Malaga was more used to seeing Brits but was welcoming nonetheless and provided some spicy chicken wings after a bread and chorizo tapa – old school! The tapa originally was a piece of bread to keep the flies out of your drink. I ponder the day as I eat and have one beer – I’m driving. There’s no more Lorca on offer and I’m not going to go back into town and park. A quick Google and I’m on my way.
The Sierra de Huetor nature park is half an hour away and offers walks in the mountains and the source of the Rio Darro. Too much temptation. Satnav rushes me there along the A92 from whose slip road it is accessed in moments. I park up and start to walk.
The mountains here range from 1000 to 1700 metres so there will be ups and downs. Fortunately I find a path that undulates gently but the sign to the source of the Darro heads steeply downhill so I control my disappointment. It’s very mixed woodland and some above treeline barren outcrops. Mediterranean and Scotch pines, holm and cork oak cover an undercroft of rosemary, thyme myrtle and plants I couldn’t identify. It was a soothing walk triggering many memories and providing fabulous light patterns through the trees.
After an hour communing with nature (!) I thought I’d better head back before the light went and I subjected Dolores to lots of “Recalculating Route“ as I wanted a proper twisty mountain drive, not a motorway. It was great through tree-lined well-paved but narrow roads and I only saw one other vehicle. However when I let her guide me Dolores got her own back on the approach to Granada Centre where I think I’ve now been through every polygono industrial around the city and back into the centre through the scariest narrow streets imaginable. In fact I could have done the whole thing more easily without SatNav help as I’ve walked and used buses on much of the route. However I did finally get back to the Parking favoured by the hotel to find a FULL sign. However I parked badly with hazards on and approached the pay desk with my Palacio de Los Navas credentials and to the horror of others behind me I was allowed in to take what did appear to be the last space in the garage. Thanks hotel! I managed to grab a stool in the busy Rosario Varela whose staff wore tees emblazoned with WHAT THE FUCK IS ROSARIO VARELA? Answer: a very popular local bar with a slightly hippie vibe. I asked whether it was Friday or Christmas that led to the crowds and they said Siempre Viernes – so Thursday hasn’t taken over here as the start of the weekend.
Back to the hotel to freshen up and then start the search for somewhere with a table for one. A stool at the counter in Zorro Viejo delivered with seafood gyoza and patatas bravas Zorro style were perfect. Crispy gyoza with cod and prawns and a very garlicky and paprika sauce on the patatas served me well – not gourmet but hip street food is the place’s vibe. Pure theatre watching the bar staff hooking down glasses, clunking giant ice cubes, carrying awesome numbers of plates and glasses just managing to cope with the onrush of orders. One server with multiple plaits and piercings, Pilar, confided “It’s a bit like performance and we love our jobs“. How can we import this’s attitude?
mikeandmurakami.com 