On our way to Granada!

 We spent the morning of Oct 27th in Seville. We had breakfast at a little street cafe and were sitting there all peaceful and relaxed when suddenly the entire front of the cafe was overtaken by a band of troubadors.

They broke out their guitars, mandolins, etc and sat around singing and talking and laughing.  It was fantastic!

I was amazed at the troubadors - they ranged in age from late 60's to about 16.  They were all dressed in matching velvet and satin costumes with capes and ribbons.  The capes were festooned with ribbons from troubador festivals that they had competed in and patches of cities they had visited.

On our way to the rental car place we passed a cathedral where a wedding was getting ready to take place.  We caught a few of the guests in their Sunday best as they headed into the building.

 

We headed south to visit Rota, where Gary had served part of his mission.  On the way we passed huge olive orchards and this impressive olive farm:

We arrived in Rota, where there is a US Naval Base. Gary served part of his mission in Rota and actually baptized a female naval officer while he was there.  

We found the apartment that Gary lived in while in Rota.

 After Rota we followed the coast road to Granada.  Along the way we passed Gibraltar, which is absolutely HUGE! Gary was in a bit of a hurry so we had to snap a shot at full speed.

 We stopped in Marbella for dinner with one of Gary's business associates from his days at OpenText.  Andres Lazano met us at a Tapas Bar and we had dinner and visited for hours!  Then we had to hurry because we still had to get to Granada and it was getting late.  Which is why the lights of Marbella look like this:

We finally arrived in Granada.  We had a portable GPS in our car and it tried to give us directions to our hotel, but we ended up in a tiny street that slowly narrowed to the width of a bicycle and Gary ended up having the back out of the street.  It took about 15 minutes because there were power poles to dodge, & motorcycles and cars parked along the side. We gave up on the GPS and called the hotel.  They told us there was no parking at the hotel anyway, so to just go dump the rental car in a parking garage in downtown Granada and take a cab to the hotel.  So we did!  The cab took us through the winding streets of Granada and we eventually found our hotel, which was so quaint and fun!

Our room at the hotel is a blast.  We have a tiny loft area with a spiral staircase.  We used the railing to dry our laundry while we were here!