The Infamous "Going to the Alhambra" Story

Taking a break on the hike up, appreciating some pomegranate sculpture, the symbol of Granada

Something you should know about visiting the Alhambra - it's very particular about tourists.  I've seen now in quite a few travel books that the Alhambra is the most visited site in Spain.  I also know from our complementary copy of The Economist's Pocket World in Figures 2017 Edition that Spain has the third highest number of yearly tourist arrivals in the world (behind France and the United States).  So, put those two things together and...well...they're just very particular.

There is a very specific quota for tourists each day and you can only enter during your very very specific allotted fifteen minute window.

But beyond the quota and the timing, you have to reserve your time in a very very very particular way - via phone (now you can do it online, so hooray progress) and only with a very very very very particular suite of credit card options.  Then, they are extremely clear that if you want to pick up your ticket that you just bought over the phone, you have to bring the exact credit card you used to buy it in the first place.

Now, they didn't take our Danish Visa/Dankort card, they didn't take our American debit cards, they didn't take our German Deutsche Bank cards or our German Visa card...they almost didn't take any of our cards except our last, final holdout - an American Visa that we had filed away in our paperwork that we never used but never closed (mostly to preserve our high credit score).

Yes, I'm setting all this up for something.

Before we even left Odense for Spain, this credit card became a running joke.  When we were packing: "Did you get THE CREDIT CARD?  What high-security pocket in our backpack should we keep it in?"  When we were walking out the door: "CREDIT CARD CHECK!  Where is this MOST IMPORTANT PLASTIC RECTANGLE?"  Literally, the only reason we were bringing this random, never-used credit card was to swipe it in one random little kiosk in Granada so they would give us our Alhambra tickets that we'd reserved for our super-particular fifteen-minute entrance time and all my dreams could finally come true.

Fast forward to Granada (and many, many "Checking in on the status and location of THE credit card" jokes later), we woke up one morning, got dressed, and very excitedly began our hike to the Alhambra.  Before we left, there was one last, "Hey Paul, you got the credit card?" throw-away joke, which, oddly, Paul answered in an uncharacteristically straight way.*

Please remember that I was seven months pregnant and it was definitely a very vertically-inclined hike from the city below the bluff all the way up to the entrance at the top.  The most interesting part though was immediately noticing how different the hill was: where the city down below was clearly dry and scrubby, that very "Mediterranean/southern California/central Utah" feel, the hill to the Alhambra was green, lush, and cool.  We kept talking about how it felt like there was some kind of natural air conditioner or something (turns out that there literally was - we learned at the top that the founders of Granada had literally rerouted a river and engineered a series of lifts and pumps to get it to flow up to the top of the bluff and then wind its way back and forth back down. Then they planted out hundreds of trees and flowers over the entire hill to create this amazing oasis)

But I'm getting off the main thread here.

We finally made it to the top after about half and hour, after many breaks/"photo-ops" and we had a good 45 minutes to spare before our entrance time to the palace inside the larger Alhambra complex.  We were right on time - figured we'd get our general entrance ticket along with our specific palace entrance ticket and spend a while getting our bearings and reading up on things.

Being the travelers that we are, being the person most obsessed with seeing the Alhambra as I was, I knew exactly where to go.  I bee-lined for the bright yellow kiosks hidden behind the public restrooms (weird) and breezed through the steps.

1. Last Name - no problem
2. Reserved time - have it memorized
3. Confirmation number - bam, got it on this post-it note in my bag here
4. Credit card - "Okay, Paul.  I need the credit card now."

Casually glancing around to me, Paul pulled out his wallet and handed me our Dankort Visa.

"Haaaa ha.  Very funny, Paul.  Good one.  Now I need the real CREDIT CARD," as I put one hand on my hip and reached out the other to him, smiling.

Then I watched as his face changed rapidly from smiling to confusion to horror.

"Paul?  I need the credit card.  You know?  THE CREDIT CARD?  The American credit card?!?!  The one we've been talking about for MONTHS now all leading up to this one single moment so I can see this one single place I've been dreaming of seeing for twenty years and I only have a tiny window where I can use the ticket we reserved and the only thing I need to be able to do that is THE CREDIT CARD THAT YOU TOLD ME YOU HAD IN YOUR WALLET?????"

Now, you may think that maybe I just thought all those things and said something else.  No, I said all of those things.  With increasing panic.  And eventually tears of pure despair welling up in my eyes.

Also, have I already mentioned?  I was seven months pregnant and we were a thirty-minute hike up a mountain away from our hotel and our entrance window was in forty five minutes?  And, as you probably can guess....Paul did not have the credit card.

Well, here's the happy ending:  Paul literally sprinted down that hill, leaving me to anxiously pace around and around the public restrooms at the entrance of the Alhambra, looking at the clock every two minutes.  He managed to run to our hotel in ten minutes, grab the credit card from his bag, triple check that it was THE CREDIT CARD, run out to the main square, hail a taxi, and get that taxi back up to the entrance in thirty five minutes.

I saw him coming from the parking lot, running for his literal life, and I started up the yellow kiosk again.  He passed the credit card baton to me with ten minutes to spare before we were due at the palace inside.  The kiosk cheerfully verified our reservation, printed the ticket, and we breathlessly limped/waddled as fast as we could through the gate.


*Obvious foreshadowing