Don’t ever think that you’re a pretty suave traveler, because you’ll immediately be punished. I felt that we were doing pretty good - having driven all over Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, New York, finding our way all over Costa Rica and in old Jerusalem, survived Bangkok and Shanghai.

But then we visited Granada. Our AirBnB of the previous night was in a tiny little village on the Spanish coast. The address had a name and a number so we felt confident. But once we found the highway exit to the village, we hit dirt roads and potholes. Each corner led to another narrow dirt road without a name. We tried them all and ended up in so many backyards. After three turns into the same driveway, a Spanish woman in an apron came to talk to us. She used her hands a lot and between that and her rapid Spanish, we figured out that she had NO idea where the house might be that we were looking for.

A German couple in the next house came outside. They spoke no English but between German, Spanish and gestures we understood that they, too, had NO idea where we had to go. After a long debate, the man pointed up one road and up, up, up. We left to give it another try. They called after us, in German, “If that doesn’t work, come back and we will have a room for you to stay!” Such kindness.

The road up, up and up was the right one. It was the same width as our car without any barriers between us and the valley floor below. There were several houses at the top but none with numbers. In despair, we parked along a white stone wall with a gate and emailed the AirBnB. Within seconds, the gate opened and there was our hostess!

After driving through many Spanish villages like this, we decided that we had enough of traffic, narrow streets and non-existing addresses.

So when ancient Granada was next, we decided NOT to try and drive into any old parts of the city. Mucha gracias. We would stay OUT of the old city. We’d be smart and stay away from any AirBnB’s that mentioned the words ‘central’, ‘close to’, or ‘old’. In fact, we decided to book a modern looking hotel that offered free parking. That way we would just walk into the old city.

Great. Good move. We booked online, entered the address (an actual street name and number!) into our GPS and left the coast for Grenada.

Compéta, one of the beautiful white towns of Spain.

First we decided to swing by the cute town of Compéta. That turned out to be a twisting, winding 30 KMs from the coast up into steep coastal hills. The road hair-pinned left and right, along steep slopes, with not much of a guard rail. But we made it and it wás worth the drive. Gorgeous, quaint town - eyeblinding white buildings. Beautiful. The way down was windy-ER, steepER, twisty-ER! But then we drove a big highway and sailed, unsuspecting, into Granada.

Our GPS kicked in and we meekly followed its instructions, left here, right there. UNTIL… it sent us closer and closer to the city center.“Can’t be right…” I thought fleetingly.

Kees was driving and started grinding his teeth as the streets got narrower. “Is this right?” he asked as the GPS sent us across a main road and up a very narrow looking one.

“I think so….” I hesitated, thinking ‘But I booked something AWAY from the historic center!’ In that instant we both decided that the wider road looked more attractive and, ignoring the GPS, Kees turned hard right instead of going straight.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

We found ourselves driving down a lovely wide street. The problem was that the lanes were only for “Taxi” or “Bus”.

We tried to look like a taxi or a bus but it didn’t seem to work. People looked at us funny. We drove several blocks through what was obviously downtown Grenada, hoping the lanes would change their minds. They didn’t.

At some point, waiting for a light to change, a big guy in a leather jacket, on a motorbike, knocked on our window. Kees rolled it down. “‘Ola!” the guy grinned, “I ‘elp you, yes?”

“OK, yes please…” We were ready for some help here because we were now right in the city center driving in wrong lanes and our GPS kept yelling at us to ‘turn left’, ‘no right’, no ‘recalculating’!

We showed him the address of our hotel-outside-the city-limits and the guy said ‘follow me’. We happily did until we realized that he didn’t have a clue where to go. He guided us up a street that ended in a plaza with no way out. We parked, I hopped out and showed him our iPad with the hotel’s address. He glanced at it and said, “OK, I take you there. Follow me!” (I think, because he did not speak English).

We managed to turn the car around and followed this big guy on his motorbike.

He zigged here, zagged there, left, right, left. The roads got narrower and narrower.

We went up steep hills, around crazy sharp corners.

“He doesn’t really know where we’re supposed to go, does he?” I whispered to Kees who was concentrating hard on not losing this one big motorbike rider in a city centre full of motorbikes.

We stopped again. I explained, in Spanish, the hotel name, the street name, the closest main street.

“Mia madre!” he exclaimed. “Si! I know. Follow me.”

And back he jumped on his bike, racing this way and that.

The streets became alleys. The hillside steeper yet.

We passed a sign that said ‘historic old city’… I swore.

At one point he jumped off his bike to help guide Kees between two walls with literally one centimeter on either side of the car. We had to fold in the side mirrors or we wouldn’t fit. I felt like we were driving into a trap that we’d never get out.

“What if he’s taking us some place totally different?” I asked Kees.

He nodded, gripping the steering wheel tighter, trying to think of alternatives.

“Let’s just forget about this,” I said after an hour, “We’ll cancel the hotel, skip Granada, go somewhere else.” Kees nodded but kept following our only life line, the motorbike rider who finally stopped again.

He made Kees park and follow him on foot, down some stairs. I stayed with the car with visions of Kees being lured somewhere… What if he never came back?

But eventually they both came back, shaking their heads. We drove on and started to recognizes corners, walls with which we had earlier close encounters. The GPS was no longer yelling at us. In fact, a few times it said “Park your car and walk to the address.” That did start to sound like good advise. Then she lapsed into silence all together.

We stopped again, after about an hour and a half of this, and discussed the situation, in Spanish, with some parked taxi drivers who all sadly shook their heads and mimed parking your car and walking down steep stairs.

“No way!” I said, “the hotel advertised with free parking. It’s not in the city…”

They shook their heads more sadly and agreed that “parking must be elsewhere. This hotel you can only reach on foot….”

We found a parking spot, which seemed to be a sprayed-painted-over bus stop. “Ees OK,” our motorbike friend insisted as we left the car and now followed him on foot down stone staircase and through alleys where even Granada drivers don’t seem to venture.

After more wandering, more asking, more head shaking, we found it.

The view from our room was so incredibly gorgeous that all was forgotten and forgiven in no time.

In an alley that reminds us of old Jerusalem, we found one house door with one tiny tile above it ‘Casa Bombo’ - by god, the name of the hotel we booked!

Finding a room with a view like this, who could ever leave again!

We were shaking by now. Didn’t even know where we left our car so we dragged our motorbike friend inside and made him tell the hotel guy, who was very understanding. Obviously we were not the first shaken guests who had wandered for hours. He poured us water, made us do some deep breathing exercises and ignored our wish to cancel the reservation.

We said goodbye to our motorbike friend. We still weren’t sure why he helped us for two hours. Was he a Spaniard proud of his city? Did he want money? He never said so but we did offer him some.

Then the hotel guy piled us into a tiny little van that was totally scraped and scratched, busted and dented, and drove us - like a bat out of hell - up stairs (yes) and around bends through alleys that no sane driver would ever drive. ‘Lo and behold he found our car.

We transferred our luggage and hope to find the car back in the same spot in a few days time, but we have no idea exactly where. He took us back, showed us a gorgeous room with breathtaking views of the Alhambra, fed us beer and sangria and said “Everything’s OK.”

It was Muslims from northern Africa who fortified the Alhambra between 12 and 1300. And it is still pretty much the same as it was 500 years ago when the conquest of Ferdinand and Isabella brought an end to Islamic rule in Spain. The king and queen immediately told Christopher Columbus to go forth on his voyage after the capitulation of the Alhambra.

Today, it is a peaceful place to recover from driving in Spain. We walked down the valley from our hotel and up the other side, approaching the Alhambra on foot. We strolled through the Moorish hallways, rooms and gardens, taking in the lacy stonework and the incredible tile mosaics. Your entrance ticket is for a specific hour of the day but once inside, you can stay as long as you like. At night, the Alhambra is lit. The pool in the court yard mirrors the lush vegetation and hallways now only echo with the footsteps of visitors. Visitors who, if they are smart, left their car well outside Granada.

• BOOKS

• https://www.alhambra.org