Granada and the Alhambra

As I mentioned, we left our "saviour hostess" for a bit and then returned. Upon returning to the area, we finally had an opportunity to spend a weekend in Granada. Many Spaniards had recommended this city to us and I had studied the Alhambra palace and fortress in Architecture School, so we had high expectations. Indeed, the city is incredibly vibrant - most notably because it is FULL of university students and tourists. It is also quite lovely, especially the old Arab Quarter.

The logistics of visiting this amazing Moorish wonder and the surrounding gardens (Generalife) are a bit tricky and guests are only allowed to visit the palace areas at a specified time but this ensures that the rooms are only crowded instead of incredibly crowded.  I´m sure that it would be a terrific experience to have the place to yourself on a warm evening.

One of the great draws of Granada are the free tapas. Every single bar that serves drinks offers a free snack with each glass of alcoholic beverage. The tradition comes from the desire to keep insects out of your drink so a little nibble on a plate would serve as a lid or "tapa" for your glass. These days, they don't serve the tapa on top of the glass, but they are still free in some parts of Spain. If this is the case, as in Granada and the Alpujarras, you can make a meal out of a pub crawl. Each round of drinks at a bar comes with a different tapa, so even if you stay in the same bar all night, you could have a variety of hams, cheeses, potatoes, olives or other items.

The other wonderful thing about Granada is that it is large and diverse enough to have some ethnic restaurants (other than Italian or Chinese - the extent of foreign cuisine in most of Spain). We took full advantage of this and after many months of Spanish cuisine, dove with gusto into a (disappointingly mediocre) Thai restaurant and a really good Moroccan place.