Part 1, Alhambra.
When the pandemic started to normalize along with the vaccines covering more people, I couldn’t leave for Spain fast enough.
I spent a month and a half in Spain’s northern half in July-September, of which I have already told about to the Finnish-speaking audience of this blog. That was more than okay, maybe because I wasn’t practising mainstream tourism.
I never thought I’d say this: I can’t recommend Spain as a tourist destination to anyone.
Not now, and if the things will not change quickly, not in the future either. (The islands might be better, waiting for my Tenerife correspondent’s view on that.)
A while ago, early November, I went back. To Madrid, Granada and Malaga. Let me tell you how that went:
Reserving and buying entrances to Alhambra of Granada
I wanted to see the Alhambra that is obviously the second (after Sagrada familia of Barcelona) most popular and most visited attraction of Spain. It´s a palace complex with very much Moorish elements and evidently even the Romans had something to do with it. It´s quite large and nicely lit in the evening.
I wish I could tell you more about it, but can´t because I learned very little about it while visiting, You will understand why, if you read further.
I booked tickets online on the official site of Alhambra, or one that SEEMS legit, https://www.alhambra.org/ well in advance as I was informed one should do, and to a guided tour that also is recommended.
Fine! After finding the afternoon tour (the website’s not responsive, I’ve noticed Spanish sites seldom are), asking the passport number of my friend that were needed to book, reserving tickets, and paying them, I get them, and think that I’m done, until the day I’ll go and present the tickets to a guide. (Don’t really know where I’ll find the guide or which entrance should one use, or are there several as the sorry excuse of a map drawn in the documents doesn’t help at all, but I decide to figure it out on location). I don’t get a receipt of any kind of the purchase. Not even the confirmation of the pay telling me the sum I’ve paid. I will have to wait for my credit card bill to know that one (=36€).
Turns out I wasn’t done: I get a mail from Alhambra´s office @bookyourtour.info that I have a new message in the ”customer area”. (Customer area? What does it mean? What’s it for? What language is it?) Along comes another mail, then another, for days on end.
I deleted most, but I got some 10-15 exactly same messages in my mail.
I don’t think that Alhambra has that many regulars, people that visit it in a daily or weekly basis. I would be willing to bet, that if such people exist, they either work or study in Alhambra, and will have other protocols entering the premises. So let as assume, as is most likely the case, that a person going to Alhambra is going for the first, in most cases also the last time. So why does the tourist office, or whatever, assume the client knows what is a customer area, why should it be of interest to him/her, and why should one register in order to get there?
So I asked in an email mail why’re you sending me this mail over and over again, and why should I be interested. Didn’t get an answer the first time, but sending feedback again I did: ”we wouldn’t have spammed you, had you registered the first time”. Left me speechless. This is the attitude that prevails in Spain after covid, and that I bumbed into on very many occasions. It’s possible that the attitude has always been the same. Might be I have just successfully avoided the worst places, and after leaning Spanish, understand the nuances I didn’t before.
So you have to sign in a tourist-info page with the freaking user id and password, because Alhambra is so off-limits, secret and popular that the public is willing to do anything to get there, but it’s evidently okay send emails to me including my entourage’s passport numbers!
A company called getyourguide.com seemed to be the one in charge after having paid, not Alhambra. The company has its headquarters in Berlin. I don´t know its details or history, but some kind of deal it does have with Alhambra, and that deal clearly isn´t doing much good to Alhambra´s reputation.
Entering Alhambra
Entering Alhambra it wasn’t clear where the meeting point was (see picture) but by asking around found it.
I had cabin luggage with me and asked the guide where I could leave it and my friends´ things before the tour, that was about to begin. The guide waved to an undefined direction saying ”where the toilets are”. Not knowing where the toilets in Alhambra entrance are, had to ask around on the way yet again.
When I found the cloakroom, I also found that the items left had to be x-rayed by a security guard. After that, the baggage was closed to a cabinet with two keys, of which I got one and the (very nice and helpful lady) clerk another. I mean… Are we entering to see the English crown jewels? What’s the point? Other than complicating everything and trying to avoid that people visit this one of Spain’s most famous and visited site?
The guided tour in English
The tour and the English-speaking guide didn’t impress us. We took an English tour because my friend doesn’t know Spanish very well, even though she would probably have understood more about a tour in Spanish than this one.
The accent of the guide was very thick and hard to understand. An English speaking guides’ English should be checked somehow (if their English is checked at all, which I doubt), and not by a Spaniard, I’m sorry.
Hers was not understandable. Don’t know about the other guides’ but wouldn’t hold my hopes very high.
The audio system didn´t help.
The earphones we were given, that is a good idea in theory, mostly transmitted static. The guide hadn’t much to say, so that wasn’t a great loss. During the first half hour she hardly said a word, but did give us 15 minutes to go someplace that I have no idea what it was, but that had a line of more than 15 minutes to get in. So we didn´t see or know what it was, and will never know because I was so fed up with the shitty tour I don´t even care any more. Forgot to take a picture, but it´s on the left before the entrance to the ”actual” palaces security control..
As the guide gave almost no background information, there was no map in the area, no ”you are here”- points. I walked about 2,5 hours and am still clueless of what I saw.
So i took pictures of the pretty tiles that I like, while listening to the painful static in my earphones:
When we got to the actual Alhambra area that evidently consist of three palaces, the information was of the type ”this is a very important building, a very famous man built it”.
I am not kidding, I heard that sort of information several times, underestimating the intelligence, curiosity, and interest of the group. No enthusiasm, no names mentioned, no explanations, minimal background info, no interesting details, all in all very disappointing.
The guide was terrible. Evidently she had said when I was searching where to leave the luggage, that she had had a long day.
Sorry, no excuse. If a pay 36 euros for a guided tour, I expect something in return.
Have a ever paid that much for entering a historical site anywhere in the world? No. Do I intend to do so in the future? Not likely, and certainly not in Spain.
Tourism is a huge business in Spain. It was cut off for a long time and the recent tourism has been counting mainly on Spanish themselves. Maybe the country found out during the pandemic, that it’ll do well enough without that industry. It seems international tourists are not welcome. Tell you more in part 2.
Pics
Todellinen prinsessa 