SANGRIA AND SUNSETS – GRANADA

September, 2015

After another early morning wake-up we were back on the road, this time travelling by bus to the cute little town of Granada.

We settled down in the front row seats of the bus with our packed lunch. I watched as the city streets transformed into rolling hills, dry grass and eventually olive groves. Between napping and window watching the time flew by, we stopped at a roadhouse to use the restroom and buy some ice cold water. It was completely in the middle of no where, with just a few deserted shops on the main street, signs written only in Spanish, and I kept expecting to see a tumble weed roll past us like in the movies.

On arrival in Granada we caught a taxi from the bus station to the heart of town, and we were thankful for Lucy’s conversational Spanish skills as she conversed with the driver who didn’t speak english. Having a Spanish speaking friend with us was actually so helpful and completely helped to transform our experience. We loved asking her how to say words or simple phrases, she could ask for meals for me without cheese or meat, and just basically knowing what was going on in situations where there was no english being spoken (something that happened surprisingly often in Spain!).

We made it to our airbnb apartment in the heart of the old town, but it wasn’t really a surprise when our host wasn’t there to meet us. We were airbnb experts now and in Europe, time is not of the essence. We knocked on the door a few times, and the neighbour opened his window with sleepy eyes (whoops, it was siesta time), informing us that our host was out of town, but someone would bring the keys shortly. Shortly turned out to be about two hours, so luckily we had a cute little tea house directly next to the apartment where we drank delicious tea and waited to be let inside.

Our apartment was on the top floor of a 500 year old building. It was the most quaint, dusty, rundown but gorgeous place we’ve stayed in our entire trip. With a view that could stop your heart. On one side we could see the rooftops as far as the hills, and right in front of us was the Alhambra in all it’s glory. We spent many nights drinking cheap sangria on our balcony admiring it’s immense beauty.

My favourite place to explore was the Albaicin and the Sacramento. We would start by weaving our way through the streets of the Albaicin, stopping to admire moroccan wears and the stunning architecture. But my favourite part was once we climbed the hill and made it to see the cave homes of the Sacramento. We walked for hours and hours that day. We saw incredible views over Granada, found sweet little vine covered streets, were invited into a cave home which appeared to be more of a witches lair and we narrowly escaped when the women disappeared through a beaded doorway to retrieve something. It was sunny and it was beautiful, it was everything I could have imagined country-side Spain to be.

On a different afternoon we explored another side of the city, the hill that is home to the Alhambra park.

And found ourselves in a labyrinth of streets with cute terraces and beautiful flowering plants.

In the evenings, Granada comes to life. The most exciting part of a night out in Granada is free tapas! When you buy a drink, usually either a beer or a tinto de verano (red wine and lemon-soda) for about 2 euro, you receive a free plate of tapas. Some places let you choose your tapas from a menu, others you receive whatever is on special that night, but I could always request the vegetarian choice. It was so much fun, and we’d find ourselves bar hoping between 4 or 5 different places and feeling ridiculously full by the end of the evening! My favourite tapas were the little veggie burgers made with tortilla or the hummus plate at the Mediterranean bar. Some nights we would meet with students from the Spanish language school where Lucy studied for a month the previous year, we’d all spend a night out on the town eating delicious food and sharing stories from our home countries. My memories from Granada are warm and fuzzy. It was such a beautiful town, shared with lovely people and well lets face it, who doesn’t love free delicious dinner every night with a ice cold drink? If you’re ever in Spain, you must visit this magical place.

♡