Almeria

I have always felt safe wherever we have travelled and commiserate with those who have fallen victim to pickpockets.

Yesterday afternoon it was nearly my turn to suffer - we were walking down one of the main streets in Granada and I had a backpack on, where else but my back. There were people around but it wasn't shoulder to shoulder stuff but more like the numbers on a NZ street say 9am in the morning, when Sherry noticed a lady behind me with her hand on the zipper which was by now nearly fully open.

Sherry alerted me to what was going on by stopping and backing into a shop frontage and in the few seconds that this had taken the woman had disappeared - there but for the vigilance of Sherry our camera and some purchases would have been lifted!

This morning we moved on from Granada to Almeria driving through some rocky mountainous barren country. We stopped for a coffee at one of the many service stops and as we left the cafe we purchased some peaches from a gentleman selling on the cafe doorstep. He must of had our number as we paid 6€ for 6 peaches but having said that the one we shared this afternoon (yes they were big enough to share) was delicimo!

A day or two ago I noted how all our accommodation has been very good but things have changed over the last few days - while the apartment at Granada was very nice apart from it didn't have a tea towel nor a bottle opener, the stay was spoilt by the commotion that other residents in the apartment block made through to the early hours of the morning.

Checking in here at Almeria we went to the room only to be overcome with the smell of stale smoke and anyone who knows me knows that as a reformed smoker I can smell smoke a mile away and have no tolerance for it. The reception guy really was out of his depth in resolving the issue firstly suggesting that he would have some "perfume" sprayed in the room and when told that that would be unsatisfactory just shrugged his shoulders.

The short of it is that another non smoking suite was not available so we downsized to a smaller room - I won't go into the issue with the safe and with the mini bar in this room - and after wasting 90 or so minutes resolving the issue were finally relaxing in the room.

Lunch was different for us today as we ended up at a typical Spanish daily market and we purchased some swordfish at one stall and took it to another who cooked it up and provided some bread and tomatos and voila we had a lunch to eat.

Not a cheap way to get a lunch mind as it worked out at around $NZ26 for two plates as above.

We strolled around the town for 45 minutes or so until the heat of the day said it was time for indoors but in that time we passed a modest Cathedral

and also an interesting restoration underway of an old large ancient building

They had really stripped the guts out of this building and I hate to think what the total bill will be by the time they stitch it all back together again.

We will venture out again later this afternoon.