Shattered Car Window in Granada Spain

As can be seen in the April 2010 photos, we had the back window of our rental car shattered - and yes this was a couple days after it was towed for illegal parking in another city.

The hotel owner came out to help Matt unload the luggage from our car.  Matt is sure he did not pull anything from the trunk of the car but rather gathered the random things we had thrown in the backseat.  The very nice hotel owner said he would drive the car across the street into his car parking garage.

In Spain, the majority of the car parking garages are built underground and entering and exiting them are on very steep ramps.

While driving our car down the very steep ramp into the garage, the hack back on the car opened up and smashed into the low cement ceiling.  Matt and I were in the hotel lobby and actually heard this crash, looked at another with a smile thinking and possibly verbally noting that it sounded like a bad car accident. We had already learned by this time that Spain drivers are not safe and drive crazy so a car accident was no surprise.
Little did we know that it was our car this time.

The hotel owner was very apologetic and called our car rental company to speak in Spanish to them and explain what was going on.  He indicated to us at this time that we needed to go 7-10 blocks down the street to the police station and make a report.  He also told us that we would not have to pay anything, as per what the rental company said on the phone, if we say the accident happened while our car was parked on the street and we were victims of vandalism.  We did just this - despite the wait time, this was semi-painless although we were loosing precious touring time.

On our return to the hotel, we waited for a car to be brought to us and a tow to take away our other car, all courteous of the rental car company --- this isnt what happened.  We ended up waiting a couple hours longer than expected to have a tow truck show up to get our car and us.
This was our first time riding in a tow truck at least everyone looking at you with "oh!" about the damaged car being dragged behind was an interested point of view.

We were taken to the car rental place about 20 minutes away -- except now it was rush hour on a Friday.

On arrival and pick up of our new rental car, we found out in fact we did have to paid around 300 Euros for damage.

The hotel owner had already given us free parking - which totaled to be 36 Euros in savings and not nearly enough to cover the deposit on the damage... even if it was vandalism.  We may not have had to paid for any damage if we told the truth that he was driving it as his own insurance would need to cover it then.

Since this had taken 6+ hours to remedy, we lost a portion of a day touring Granada - which unfortunately was one of the more interesting places in south Spain of those we visited; such is only my opinion although I
do believe Matt is of a similar opinion as well.  We decided not to let this ruin the last couple days we had on our trip.

A couple weeks after returning home to London, I phoned the hotel owner asking him to pay half of the cost of damage, even though I felt he should pay all of it.  After mincing some words, he hung up on me.  My boiling blood cooled and Matt and I decided it was a lost cause and not worth ruining the multitudes of other adventures, cultural experiences, and sheer fun we already had.