When we arrived in Granada, we went straight to the hotel. The hotel was located in the old section of the city. To get into it we had to drive up to a little hydrant-looking thing and push a button. Then you have to tell someone through a microphone what hotel you are staying at. This lowers a few large metal poles in the road so you can cross them. Driving here was a nightmare. There were NO street signs and the traffic was insane. We had to circle around a few times, leaving the old city even, until we finally found the hotel.
After we got settled in we walked to the Plaza Nueva, which was packed by this time (it must have been around 9 or 10). We then walked up the Paseo de los Tristes, which runs along the river with a view of the Alhambra. After eating some Tapas for dinner at a bar there (mmmm.. Manchego..), we walked up the side streets of Granada. Granada is located on a hillside, so these streets were very difficult to climb at times, epsecially since they were old and were mostly cobblestones.
We climbed up the streets to Plaza San Nicolas, which has a great panoramic view of the Alhambra on the other side of the river. This is the famous plaza in Granada, and for some reason the one thing I remember about it was the Clinton went there when he was President, with his family.
On the way back to our hotel, we stopped by an Irish pub close to the hotel for some Guinness. The Guinness there didn’t taste any better than here, by the way. While we were there I backed into this old man by mistake and he started yelling at me in Spanish.
The next day the first thing we did was go to the Cathedral, which was very bright inside for a cathedral. The huge organ there was playing, and it was really amazing.
The next stop was the Capilla Real (Royal Chapel) where we saw some artwork and the ornate tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella. After the Capilla Real, we hopped a bus to the Alhambra.
The Alhambra is a huge Arabic palace on the hills of Granada. The name Alhambra means “the red one” and refers to the color of the mountain on which it is built. This place, and the Generalife Gardens were really amazing to see. We had to buy tickets early because there are a limited amount of visitors per day, and you have to get them by time slot so that there aren’t too many people there at the same time. There were lots of carvings of stone and wood in Arabic letters. I looked for the O with the nose on it, which the books said means Allah. That was everywhere. Some stone carvings even had some of the original blue color left! The Patio de los Leones, or lion’s court had a fountain that was comprised of 12 lion statues in a circle. In old times, the hour of the day could be determined from which lion was spouting water. All in all, I was very impressed with the place.
After the Alhambra tour, we went back to the old city, checked our email (in this really crappy place where Theresa’s computer spontaneously rebooted on her twice. What was really funny was that I read an email from Bob about him hearing that there is dog poop all over Spain, which was not the case up to that point (as I wrote in a reply email). However, from that point on, there was dog poop EVERYWHERE we went in Granada. Go figure.
We decided to spend the rest of the afternoon shopping and walking around the shopping district in Granada. Around that area, there were weddings everywhere. We walked up to San Nicolas for the supposedly spectacular sunset view, but by the time we got there we had missed the sunset. While we were walking around San Nicolas, a little girl almost puked on Theresa. We did get lucky in our choice of restaurants that night. We found a nice looking place but they were reservations only. Luckily though, they said to come back in a half-hour and they would have a table open. We did that, and got an amazing table at the edge of the restaurant facing the Alhambra, which was lit for the evening.
The streets of Granada were so narrow that every time a car went by, we had to hide in the doorways to let them pass. Now that’s narrow.