Andalu-See-Ya!: Granada

Hola todos,

The city of Granada was our next stop in our Andalusian adventure. A former strategic hub for both the Moors and the Catholics, Granada held a lot of promise as we boarded our train from Málaga.

Our first stop was the Cathedral, one of the largest in Europe and built starting in 1523 (but it took over 100 years to finish). It was huge and really used natural lighting well—one of our party thought it was best lit/brightest cathedral they have seen in Europe to date!

 

Left: There was an incredible series of altars throughout the cathedral, each containing a dozen priceless paintings and sculptures.  Right: There are two 400-pipe organs in the middle of the church.

 

Next to the Catedral is the Capilla Real (Royal Chapel), where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel I were buried. The outside is decorated in an incredible neogothic design and inside (no pictures allowed) was a beautiful chapel with stunning paintings, sculptures, and a marvelous altarpiece.

We had a quick grocery store lunch (I’m a Carrefour fan) before it was time to meet up with our walking tour. This one was scheduled for 2.5 hours—and it took us everywhere across the city!

We learned about the history of Granada’s downtown, or Centro, got some great vistas of Granada, and saw the Alhambra peeking out at us from every street corner.

 

This painted glass window in the middle of a busy artisan and souvenir market is the only remaining original part of the silk market that was here during the Moorish occupation.

We learned that the pomegranate is the symbol of Granada (“granada” is the Spanish word for pomegranate) and it is everywhere, from manhole covers to pottery to the mosaic cobblestone streets. Blue and white pottery is often the decoration of choice for balconies and even the sides of buildings.

 

Left: A pomegranate in mosaic cobblestones on a random sidewalk.

 

In the Sacramonte neighborhood, we walked past houses built into the mountain as caves—the Roma people (and other disfavored or exiled groups) who lived on the edges of the city built their communities into the mountainside. There, they developed flamenco, and some flamenco shows are even performed in caves to this day.

The tour kept walking up and up (do we get to count those steps as double?), so by the end of the tour we were high up on the mountainside in time for a picturesque sunset over Granada as the Alhambra lit up for the evening.

We’d walked quite a bit throughout the tour (and most of it up one hill or another), so the conclusion of the tour meant—you guessed it—tapas time. We wandered around the downtown centro in search of something that wasn’t too touristy (or at least didn’t feel touristy). Across the street from an internet-famous spot was a welcoming bar with a wide selection of food, good beer and wine, and tapas dropped off with your drink order. The waiters were so friendly and we felt right at home (pretty sure the owner dropped off some of our food!), so I cannot recommend Mesón Andaluz enough.

 

Left: The tapas platter that was dropped off with our first round of drinks.

Right: Obviously, we had to get a platter of jamón ibérico!

Some gelato from the gelatería across the street from our hotel closed out the night. (Funny enough, they have a location in Manhattan, too.) Although we had a full day of walking, we had even more on deck for tomorrow—and our next morning was an early one!

* * *

This morning, we had timed tickets for a guided tour of Alhambra, the last stronghold of the Moors on the Iberian peninsula and the second-most visited site in Spain. Our tour was incredibly comprehensive, as our guide was an art historian who added a lot of depth to what we were seeing. There are also general admission tickets that don’t come with a tour, but I cannot recommend doing a guided tour enough: we got so much more out of the complex than we otherwise would have.

 

Also part of the Alhambra complex is the Generalife (essentially, the summer home of the sultan) and some beautiful gardens.

 

Right: The view of Granada from Generalife.

After a three-hour tour, our heads were hurting with all of the information we had learned; we wandered around for another hour until our feet hurt, too. We walked down the Alhambra’s hill into the Granada Centro again for a picnic lunch near a fountain and some bustling street traffic, and we stopped at a local bakery for a pionono, a local pastry (named after Pope Pius IX during his visit Granada).

The afternoon was spent wandering around the parts of Granada we hadn’t seen yet, picking streets at random and finding green spaces and keeping an eye out for good menus.

While we were wandering around, a church caught my eye—there was nothing particularly special about it at first glance, but I crossed the street to see if we could enter (because, as I learned in Italy, unassuming exteriors can often indicate knock-your-socks-off interiors). The church was closed, as it turned out, but a quick Google search noted that the Carmelite nuns that lived there sold pastries out of a little window off to the side of the church. I have talked the ears off of so many people asking about this trip to tell them about these little nun pastry shops, so I was so excited to stumble across one! There was a menu posted near the window, and my mom ordered: she rang a little bell and a sister opened the window and we acquired our Teresitas (“little Teresas”, named after the influential Spanish Carmelite reformer St. Teresa of Ávila). They tasted like an almond-forward shortbread and were coated in chocolate. ¡Divino!

We wandered a bit more until we came to Plaza Bib-Rambla, a central hub of restaurants and nightlife just off the Catedral and near our apartment. It was our final night in Granada, so after a few drinks and tapas, we wandered around the centro to see how it changed by night. Another full day in the books!

*    *    *

Today we left Granada, but not before we 1) had dessert for breakfast and 2) saw one more thing.

First stop: churros with chocolate. The churros were piping hot, and the chocolate sauce was like a thick hot chocolate meant as a dipping sauce. This is a common treat; although the churros were tasty, I would have loved them if they had been sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

Stop número dos: with our tickets to the Catedral and Royal Chapel came entry to the Monasterio de San Jerónimo. It’s a very peaceful little retreat off a main drag, so it felt like an escape from the city.

A teeny orange grove is in the middle courtyard.

 

Left: The old refectory. Nuns live at the monastery now, but they use a different part of the complex for daily activities. Right: This was the monks’ water fountain.

Here was a great example of an unassuming exterior accompanied by an impressive interior: the church at the monastery was impressively decked out—it seemed like every square inch was covered by a painting of some kind.

Before long, it was time to say “adios” to Granada and catch our bus to our next city: Córdoba. (And yes, we had to forgo the train for this segment because between threatened strikes and the tragic train crash near Madrid, the train options were limited and filled up quickly!)

Besos,

Tina the Exploradora