¡Viva! — Two South of Granada

From a business perspective, we are back to square one.

We remember very well the numb shock we felt when Spain was locked down on 14th March and any reservations we had for our Casa Higueras Bed & Breakfast and our summer line-up of Granada Concierge Cultural and Creative courses just disappeared.

On 25th July, when the UK Government imposed quarantine on anyone travelling into the UK from Spain, that same feeling returned and we saw the reservations we had for August and September just vanish. We know we are not alone, but this knowledge does little to staunch the flow of despair when you know that a major part of your income stream has just dried up. Spanish people are still travelling but, we have noticed, their preference seems to be for self-catering accommodation where they can gather with their friends or family on their own. This is understandable, and I will admit to looking down onto our neighbour’s house - a self-catering property with small roof-top pool - with a twinge of envy.

Our little property marketing consultancy is also suffering due to the uncertainty around and inability to travel. Looking at social media, there is a frenzy of activity from UK nationals all hoping to make the move before the end of this year, but finding that their window for property visits is being squeezed ever more tightly. We received an email only a few days ago from someone who reads our blog and wanted a little bit of advice. We exchanged emails and I discovered that they have bought a house unseen, so keen are they to get their status sorted out before 31st December 2020. I had visions of the property being an inexpensive ruin somewhere remote, but the house is large and came with a price tag that warrants some consideration, so I have to take my hat off to these purchasers. To rely on a Zoom video tour of a property takes some courage; fortunately, the village in which the house is situated is lovely and we also know the agent who happens to be selling the house, so all may well be fine.

So, what do you do when the income slate has been wiped clean?

There is no doubting that it is difficult to remain positive, even though we wake up daily to clear blue skies and wall-to-wall sunshine. The weather in this second half of August has been glorious; we had a couple of evenings that rather smacked of autumn, but they were short-lived and we are enjoying every moment of being in our home and garden. We are in the process of making plans for some autumn works to the garden - the creation of more areas for relaxing and growing our fruit and vegetables protected from the marauding Ibex. Ultimately, we have no option but to hold our nerves and hope that, eventually, travel restrictions will be relaxed once again and we can welcome visitors to our stunning part of the world.

The danger with self-isolation is finding yourself becoming too used to staying at home. I doubt if anyone loves wearing a face mask whenever they go out, and when the daytime temperatures hit the mid to high 30s, face masks become even less of a tempting proposition. As a result, staying at home is just less hassle, and the idea of going out anywhere just seems to be too much of an effort. However, it is vitally important that we do try to maintain some sense of the normal, not only to support our local communities here in Spain but also for our own sanity. We have, therefore, taken advantage of the lack of tourists to enjoy some of Granada’s crowning glories. Our friends, David and Lorna, bought tickets to go to the annual Lorca y Granada en los Jardines del Generalife festival; these were a birthday present for Andrew and were hugely welcome. We love our Granada excursions with David and Lorna as they always include a relaxed dinner, a few glasses of wine and lots of gossipy chit-chat. We, Andrew and I, also got tickets for an evening visit to the Nasrid Palaces in the Alhambra.

August in Granada is a lovely month as most of the locals disappear to the coast or the mountains in the hope of finding respite from the fierce summer heat. This year, the city is even quieter, as there are no tourists drifting between historic sites, bars, and leafy squares. It is blissfully peaceful, sedate even, but this veneer of mature summer beauty hides the tragedy of the businesses that will not survive and whose doors will not reopen. Despite the evident lack of visitors, the open air theatre in the Generalife Gardens was full for the performance we attended. Obviously, there were not as many seats in the auditorium, but the space certainly didn’t feel empty. The atmosphere, as ever, is as magical as any performance you might see on stage. Surrounded by trees, open to the eternal night skies, afloat on a sea of twinkling lights rippling out below, this must be one of the most enchanting theatrical spaces anywhere in Europe. The show we saw was equally electric. ¡Viva! is an all-male Flamenco show devised by Manuel Liñan and performed by his dance company. It is vibrant, energetic, balletic and infused with wit. The theme throughout the show addresses social stereotyping and gender fluidity but not with any overtly agitprop agenda; rather, it subtly and beautifully asks us to question our societal preconceptions. The music was beautiful and the dancing faultless; the stamina of these performers defies belief, and it was a 2 hour display of grace, dynamism, projection and passion and not to be missed!

A week or so later, Andrew and I were back in Granada for an evening wander around the Nasrid Palaces at the heart of the Alhambra. We stopped, first, for a libation at a bar and restaurant that we have visited before and always enjoyed, but this visit rather cemented the place in our affections. It has always been suggested that the Alhambra Palace Hotel has one of the finest terraces in Granada for the enjoyment of a cocktail with a view. However, we would suggest that the Restaurant Mirador Carmen San Miguel offers a far less starchy and much more relaxed experience, but then the alcohol could well have had an input! It was a beautiful evening after another hot day, and the breezes were warm and scented. The terrace behind this restaurant is spacious to allow for plenty of social distancing - only three tables were occupied, one of which was ours. As the afternoon light faded, the lights of Granada below took over from the peach sky above and we could quite easily have stayed here all night, enjoying the deliciously chilled Rosado and nibbling our way through tasty tapas and raciones of Pluma de Cerdo. We enjoyed a moment of total relaxation in a setting that is hard to beat.

An evening visit to the Nasrid Palaces is something that everyone who visits Granada should try and do. Daytime visits, taking in the gardens too, are essential, but there is something intimate and magical about a subtly lit tour of the breathtakingly intricate inner sanctum of the Alhambra complex. It was even more easy to imagine the rulers of the Emirate of Granada, and their families, graciously floating from one sumptuous space to another, guided by flaming torches casting reflections and shadows across intricately carved stone, through filigree windows as delicate as lace, and mirroring archways in illusionary ornamental pools.

As we left the palaces for our walk back through the woods surrounding the Alhambra, there was the sound of Flamenco guitar and song drifting over the fortress walls, competing with the background chirruping of the cicadas. Overwhelmingly, it felt as if the city of Granada had been returned to the Granadinos, and the white noise of groups of sightseers erased. The emotionally wrought ululations of the distant male singer (cantaor) seemed, more than ever, to belong to a time gone by and we, both of us, were transported back hundreds of year and we could not fail to be moved.

This brings us back to the initial thread of this post and the parlous state of Spanish tourism. We feel increasingly passionate about the fact that Spanish tourism is not the sole domain of the Costas; we were both frustrated that the UK travel press, at the moment of the initial relaxation of travel restrictions, deemed it necessary to highlight the Costa hotspots and the party islands, encouraging the return of the mask-less beach habitués. Spain desperately needs its visitors, but there is so much incredible magic hidden in the rich, velvet folds beyond the coastal hem. These vast inland expanses don’t give up their secrets easily, rather concealing their virtues behind intricate fans of modesty. However, once the fan is lowered and the warm, scented breezes drift over you, accompanied by the sounds of distant guitar and soulful voice, visitors cannot fail to succumb to something far beyond mere travel.