Okay, I just found my journal of my day in Granada. It's written as a journal, not a "review" per se, so you can just ignore all the extraneous stuff. But I think it gives a good feel for the excursion, and what you'll see and experience. Here it is:

May 5 – Malaga

Losing two hours of sleep stinks, especially when you know you have a 9-hour excursion ahead of you. I’m still a little foggy why we had to turn the clocks forward two hours – something about GMT and DST and a bunch of other time-related acronyms, but the bottom line was, I didn’t go to bed any earlier or drink any less wine, and I had to drag myself out of bed two hours earlier this morning. Ick. But in the end it worked out – it was a 90-min. bus ride each direction, during which I mostly slept, so I gained it back!

The tour to Granada and the Alhambra Palace was really fascinating. I am glad I did the Alhambra – it’s certainly different from anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s like some of those places that you really should see once in your life if you are there, like the Accademia in Florence or the Leuve in Paris or the Leaning Tower in Tuscany…but once you’ve done it, you’ve done it and you can skip it the next time you are there and take in the more local pleasures. I didn’t do much research at all into the Alhambra, so I had little idea of what to expect.

The palace is an ancient Moorish work of art & craftsmanship that is very different from what you see in most European palaces & castles – almost austere if you compare it to the elaborate and gilded confections you might see in Germany or Italy, yet very ornate in more subtle ways. The walls were covered in carvings and Arabic writings, but there were no paintings or depictions of living creatures as that was perceived as heretical. There was room after room, each more ornately carved and impressive than the next, and exquisite courtyards with fountains and lush greenery. We had an energetic young woman guide who gave us quite a detailed history lesson and taught us about the various rulers who occupied this hilltop palace – their harems, their politics, and fascinating stories such as the Crown Prince who had an entire family of 36 executed in one room because one of them had slept with his favorite concubine. Talk about a fatal attraction! Too bad Loverboy, my rejected suitor, wasn’t on this tour – might make him think twice about attempting to have adulterous affairs with married passengers.

After spending a couple hours on that guided tour, we walked up to the beautiful ancient gardens and through the labyrinth there. The gardens were quite ornate and beautfully designed, and the views from up there were breathtaking. You really get to see the whole region. This place is just steeped in exotic history -- you really feel as if you stepped back in time, to an ancient culture that is like nothing you're familiar with. It's quite different from other ancient, historical places such as Rome...the Moorish influence is very evident, and very unusual (to me, anyway).

Some in our group elected to wait at the bottom of the gardens, as there was a lot of stair-climbing involved, and we’d been going going going since 8:15 am and it was now after 12. Next we hit a couple of shops that sold the characteristic inlaid wood crafts, and I bought a couple more boxes for my collection of small boxes from around the world (like I need more).

Unfortunately, some people took forever, and it was now almost 2pm and I’d had no food since my light b-fast at 7:00 am, so I was feeling a bit crabby and light-headed. That’s the problem w/ these bus tours – you only go as fast as the slowest straggler.

Finally they marched us down to the Alhambra Palace Hotel, which was very beautiful in a more luxurious European way, rather than the equally beautiful but sort of alien and Arabian-exotic feel of the hotel in Rabat. Again we had our own room, and were treated to a nice lunch. This wasn’t nearly as impressive as the Moroccan lunch – it was served in the standard way by waiters & we had nice tables w/ china & linen, but the food was unremarkable – a rather dry chicken breast and some veggies. They did serve us some really delicious wine, and we marveled that we’d made it to almost 2:30 pm before anyone thrust a glad of booze in our hands. How unusual! Meanwhile, a group of Flamenco guitarists played for us for a while and placed several copies of their CD on each table. After a while, when no one bought any, they went around and gathered them all back up and left.

I slept most of the way back.