Riding in Granada, Spain

Dec 29, 2019 / ~1000 words / 5 min read

This year comes to its end, and it's time to summarize. The best thing that happened to me this year was the motorbike trip in Spain. I'd like to share how it went and why I liked it so much. Videos included.

I like traveling. Bragging facts:

I’ve visited 15 countries
I’ve been to 32 places
I’ve spent a total of 102 days in traveling.

Since I got my motorbike license, I’ve had 2 big trips that went particularly well: Lanzarote and this one – Granada in Spain. It went so well with Lanzarote that in Granada we even took a guided tour from a local company (details later), and I filmed our trip on camera (only pictures before). What beautiful footage has come out! It was totally worth doing.

Arriving #

Everything started very spontaneously. In September 2019 I found this guided tour from www.motorcycletouringspain.net in Spain. It was relatively inexpensive and included a lift from/to the airport. Accommodation and breakfasts were also included. Julia (my wife) didn’t mind joining me as a passenger, and we booked the whole thing.

We flew to Málaga on September 25th, and Ron (the tour company owner and guide) met us at the airport. What a lovely person to talk to. We always found an interesting topic to talk about, and he knew the area very well. He has been living there for more than a decade years and is practically local. After we met another tour member from Ireland — David, we went to the guest house in Vélez de Benaudalla. The trip from the airport normally takes around 1h 15m (110 km).

On the first day we didn’t do much, just went for a walk in the town and had some local food.

Vélez de Benaudalla — Vélez De Benaudalla Where the Guest House Was. Click to Zoom.

The first day of the trip #

The next day, I got a big BMW GS with a boxer engine (can’t remember the exact model and year, but it looked quite old), and first we went to the gas station. This BMW had a very unusual (for me) turn signal layout. The left turn signal was on the left side, and the right turn signal was on the right side of the handlebars. Nowadays motorbikes have the both turn signal buttons on the left. So, it took me some time to adjust.

Then, at the gas station, I spilled gas all over the bike because the pump pistol was not functioning as I expected. Normally, it should stop itself when the fuel tank is almost full, but this one didn’t. Local difference? Well, nice start, hah? Surprisingly, the smell of the gas disappeared quite quickly, and we started our trip.

If I’m honest, I was quite nervous because the roads in that area were very twisty and the other 2 riders had decades of riding experience. Also, I was riding with a passenger on a motorcycle, which I had never ridden before. The first half an hour or so was tough, but once I got used to the bike, I managed to keep up and to really enjoy the ride.

Make no mistake, if you’re not a confident rider and you’ve never ridden in mountains before, it might be too much for you. Ron told me some stories about his past clients: some of them could not continue the trip because of their lack of skill, and they had to stop and return to the house. Fortunately, nobody ever died or got seriously injured. I myself had a couple of close calls, like oversteering once and having oncoming traffic after a blind corner on a very narrow road, but I managed. I was careful where it was necessary. Once we also had a ~270-degree spiral turn which was so weird. You feel like the turn should have stopped like seconds ago but it goes and goes and goes.

Besides the cool twisty roads in the mountains, on that day we went to see the “iron waterfall” (the water is rich in iron, and the surrounding rock turned orange). The highest altitude we reached that day was ~1,512 m.

I had a lot of fun on these roads. See it for yourself:

First day route — Our Route on the First Day of the Trip (Red Line). Click for the Full Size Map.

First stop — The First Stop. Click to Zoom.

Second stop — The Second Stop. Click to Zoom.

Iron waterfall — What I Called an "Iron Waterfall". Click to Zoom.

Filming — That's How I Filmed the Last Stop in the First Video. Click to Zoom.

Bridge view — The View From the Other Side of the Bridge. Click to Zoom.

The second day of the trip #

I’d say the first day was just a warm-up for the second day. The second day felt more intense (riding difficulty-wise) but also had absolutely fantastic views. Some sections of the route had really narrow roads right next to a cliff. So, it was quite a lot of adrenaline. On that day we went to see a beautiful lake, and we reached ~2,560 m of altitude at Monte Ahí de Cara. We could see the entire region from that spot. Great view!

Again, see it for yourself:

Second day route — Our Route on the Second Day of the Trip (Blue Line). Click for the Full Size Map.

Somewhere in mountains — Somewhere in the Mountains, These Roads Are Narrow. Click to Zoom.

The lake — The View of the Lake. Click to Zoom.

Monte Ahi De Cara — Mirador Monte Ahí De Cara. Click to Zoom.

To conclude #

The trip exceeded our expectations. Everything worked out quite well, and I enjoyed every single second of it. I even consider coming back some day and maybe visiting some other places in Granada. I’m pretty sure we have not seen all of it just yet.

In our final hours before our flight back to Berlin, we asked Ron to bring us to the beach which was not too far away. There was no sand there, just gravel, so it’s not entirely pleasant to walk there barefoot, but it’s a beach, and it can never be bad.