Spain: Granada

After a much more comfortable bus ride we arrived in Granada which is about 3 hours east of Seville. The main attraction here is the Alhambra which is an 11th century Moorish fortress built on the hill overlooking the town. We picked yet another airbnb winner with these rooftop terrace views, yours for just A$39 a night!

  
  

The Granada style of tapas is that you just buy a drink, and get some food for free. The beer prices aren't inflated either. I have no idea how they make money, no wonder the Spanish economy is in the toilet. Anyway we took full advantage and sure enough you get another plate of food with your next beer. After 3 beers I could eat no more. It's just that the mystery of not knowing what's coming next is so tempting. Because we have no photos of tapas to show you, here is a Kate-and-cat-photo to fill this space. 

We got up bright and early for once and hiked up the hill to the Alhambra. The walk was so steep the obligatory Gypsies selling sprigs of rosemary could barely chase us down! The Alhambra complex is pretty huge with various bits added on by whichever king happened to be in power at the time. Kate found some stray cats to annoy while we waited for the hordes of school children to disperse and we headed into the main Nasrid Palace which was pretty spectacular.

In this building there is a series of baths in a small labyrinth of rooms.

This kind of tiling is typical of the Moorish architecture. Some of the tiling on the ground was almost worn away from so many people walking through.

Every so often the Alhambra would open out into a courtyard just like this one.

The view from the top of the Alhambra was almost as good as from our terrace. From here you could see the remains of the old barracks where the soldiers lived and perhaps some of the servants. There was evidence of stairways and slightly different layouts depending on the social standing of the person who lived there.

 

It's hard to imagine that for a long time the Alhambra fell into disrepair and was essentially abandoned for centuries. Everywhere you look the detail is incredible, and after paying a ludicrous amount of money for an audio tour I'm sure the place will be well looked after for centuries to come.

Later we retreated back to apartment where we spent the afternoon watching the sunset while having a bottle of wine on the rooftop.

Dinner was another free-tapas-with-drinks affair and we ate ourselves stupid with the locals for the price of a few beers. We will be sad to leave Spain as it is right up there in both of our favourite places lists, but we catch the ferry across to Morocco tomorrow so it isn't all bad.

- Joe and Kate