Grand Granada

After a very stress free flight from Barcelona (and our first cave-in to the call of McDonalds at the airport) we arrived in Granada in the south of Spain. I planned our stop there on the advice of my parents and couldn't really remember what was there, but knew that it was supposedly amazing. Ray on the other hand didn't know anyone who had been or know anything about it herself. As the days leading up to Granada ticked by she talked to more and more people from home who would question her as to why she was going there, and I could hear her thinking the same thing to herself when she would answer that it's because I said we should. So needless to say the pressure was on for this city to impress.
We stepped off the plane literally into 43 degree heat. After our cramped plane ride we had a cramped bus ride into the city which didn't help lessen the flow of sweat that was streaming out of us.
After getting off the bus at the station advised by our hostel's website we realized we were still ages away from where we wanted to get to. And that is the story of how we caved into taking the first of many future taxi rides in hellishly hot Europe.
After settling in to what was actually a really nice hostel Ray and I headed out for dinner. We took the recommendation of my friend Suz and went to this bar called Babel. We weren't really impressed. The service was bad and the greasy pad Thai that appeared from our guess work ordering didn't exactly help with my upset stomach issues lingering from Barcelona.
We only had the one day to spend in Granada so I scoured over Lonely Planet and Tripadvisor to plan for the next day.
We woke up pretty early (for us) in an effort to beat the heat which was set to reach 45 that day. First stop was this monastery which was a short bus ride out of town. The brochure they gave us on entry was all in Spanish, so the first room filled with gruesome paintings of monks being brutally murdered still has us slightly confused... But we lucked out when we reached the main attraction of the monastery (one room ornately decorated in marble and gold) because there was an Contiki tour going through at the same time.

After the monastery we wandered through the old Moorish quarters of the city. Our map was really terrible and it showed during this part of the day as we constantly overshot the places we were trying to get to. We did however stumble across this square that I hadn't planned to go to that had amazing views of the city and the gem of Granada: the Alhambra Palace. Next to the square was this restaurant that had an amazing menu, so Ray and I decided we would go there for dinner that evening. It was super pricey (for a backpacker budget) but after the meal we had the night before we decided we deserved it and made a reservation.

After a lunch stop and a detour into a small art gallery we headed to the Alhambra. We had to buy tickets for a specific time to enter the palace, so we went an hour early so we could look around the gardens and the rest of the citadel. It wasn't enough. There is so much to see here and if you go I would recommend doing it in a different season or super early in the morning. Even if we hadn't been rushing to our reservation I would have wanted to leave because I was getting so tired walking around the gargantuan grounds in that heat.
We both loved the palace. The detail in the decoration is exquisite and hard to even describe in words. Unfortunately Ray and I shared her camera that day as I was using my Diana, and I'm so behind in publishing this that we have already split up and I didn't get the photos from her. But I will post some as soon as I can.

We made it to our reservation at Las Estrellas Mirador San Nicolas (slightly late and shaken from our taxi ride down tiny, very curvy streets), which happened to coincide perfectly with the sunset. It was an amazing experience looking out over the valley with the Alhambra on the mountain top, sipping cocktails and eating exquisite food while a man serenaded us with his Spanish guitar playing as we watched the sunset colours change. It was one of the "pinch me" moments that you hope to get out of traveling and I couldn't help bursting into a huge smile every five seconds.

More from me soon about our stay in Sevilla.
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