The River Genil flows steadily along while Granada's main bridge is expertly illuminated
"The River Genil brings life energy into Granada." It meanders through the many villages along its banks and then into Granada - moving slowly on its way to the Mediterranean sea. It is special for two reasons:- At 360 kilometres long it is the second longest river in Spain. And, not least important, it flows through Granada city.
and alongside the Carretera de Sierra Nevada (right) Once it has entered Granada, the river flows along the Carretera de Sierra Nevada (where our friends Isabel and Juan live) and then runs alongside the Paseo de la Bomba in the centre of Granada itself. The Paseo de la Bomba is listed as point number seven on The Best Parts of Granada to Go and See in The sixty four things that make Granada city breaks a great thing to do. This week I was walking along the Puente Genil (River Genil Bridge) when I had one of those rare question-of-a-lifetime-being-answered moments ... How can the underside of a bridge be accessed when the river is in full flow? I had seen an articulated arm reaching out from a parked waggon, the arm reaching down under the bridge - and so I knew. It took me a little while to see who was controlling the equipment but I finally managed to see Juan. If you look at the photograph below you will just make out his control module hanging from his shoulder. It contains the levers and buttons necessary to accurately position the workmen who were going under the Genil bridge archway. The workmen were giving small hand movements to signal exactly where they wanted their cradle to move to.
According to what I was told, the men were positioning strip lighting to provide "under arch" lighting effects. This is something I'm really looking forward to seeing. Now, I had always been under the impression that most everything stops when it rains in Granada. Obviously these men were made of "sterner stuff" than that! Of course, being brought up in England, rain doesn't bother me either, and so I took some photographs and chatted to Juan while everyone else scuttled by under their umbrellas. And all the while the River Genil meandered slowly along neither noticing or caring what was happening - just as it always has done. It probably never even noticed what was going on under its bridge... What do you think? Related links
The river Genil is the second longest river in Spain but when it flows through the centre of Granada it takes on a character of its own, providing beauty and a wonderful breath of nature to all. If you're new here, why not subscribe to my RSS feed. Just click on the above left "subscribe to The Granada Blog" link. Let us know what you think. click on your blog comments. Return to the bed breakfast Granada Blog Page. To go to the top of this page click on River Genil To find out all about Granada go to Granada information
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