Granada, Spain

8-10 March 2017

We pretty much slept through the night and got up around 10:00 AM and was ready to check out at noon.  When we checked out I told the woman at the desk that we should have a rental car here and she said the rental car was here, but didn't offer any forms or the key.  "Where is the car?" I asked.  She pointed at a guy in the lobby.  Ah...the rental car company is here....got it.  I was expecting the car to be dropped off and the people in the hotel to deal with it.

Anyway, we got the car and I drove for my first time in Europe.  It was a bit scary driving where we couldn't understand any of the signs and driving where the streets can be as narrow as our car and driving where there were traffic circles everywhere, but luckily we were starting in a small town to start.

It was now after noon and we needed to drive into town to get a sim card for our cell phone since we didn't think it was a good idea to drive around without a working cell phone.  Plus, we need a way to communicate with hotels and Airbnb hosts.  We drove around, found a parking spot, found the phone store, found a sandwich shop, ate lunch, and was ready to leave Rota by 2:00 PM.  We have 3.5 hours (185 miles) to get to Granada.

What an amazing drive.  We drove past a couple of medieval towns that we would have loved to visit, but we wanted to get to Granada and check into our Airbnb and meet up with Hanna by 7:00 PM.  The apartment we found was only about 5 minutes from Hanna so we agreed to meet her at the park between our houses.  We were so happy to see her:

Spain reunion with Hanna!

How exciting to be so far from home and be able to meet up with family.  We walked around town and came across a church with its doors open for service, so we peaked in:

Beautiful, random church in Granada

We then headed to a restaurant to have our first taste of authentic Spanish paella and a pitcher of sangria.  We can get used to this!

First, of hopefully may, pitcher of sangria.

Yummy seafood paella.

Hanna had class the next morning, so we called it a night pretty early which was fun with us since we still had a touch of jet lag.  

The next morning we slept in and had trouble getting ready to go.  By the time we were ready I got a text from Hanna asking what we were up to?  I told her we were about to go for a walking tour.  She said that she had 2 hours until her next class and that she would join us.  She told us to walk up a street and she will walk down it and find us.  Sounds easy, right?  Well, Tim and I walked down the wrong street and got lost in the tangled, narrow streets.  With no way to communicate with Hannah we just gave up and began following a walking tour outlined in our tour book.  First stop was the "Corral del Carbón" that was a caravanserai, a protected place for silk merchants “to rest their camels, spend the night, get a bite to eat, and spin yarns”.  This place dates back to the 14 century.

Plaza del Carbón

Next stop was Alcaicería which was originally a Moorish silk market and is now a tourist marketplace:

Checking out the kitchy merchandise at Alcaicería.

Beautiful details on the buildings of Alcaicería.

Next stop was Plaza de Bib-Rambla with a cool fountain topped by Neptune:

Neptunian fountain

Amazing architecture.

Next we walked by an impressive cathedral built between the early 1500s and finished 200 years later in the late 1700s.  Notice the triumphal arch design purposely used to celebrate the triumph over the Islamic moors that were here originally.  As a matter of fact, the church was built right over a destroyed mosque.

This next building, that was closed when we arrived, is where Ferdinand and Isabel's, the famed king and queen that funded Columbus' expedition, coffins are located:

Just outside this building was this cool stonework in the ground:

Next we arrived at the Plaza Isabel La Católica with an impressive statue of Queen Isabel and Columbus:

Onward the tour took us through Plaza Nueva:

Past a small church that was also build over a mosque:

Along the Darrow River with it's cool old bridges:

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And finally to Paseo de los Tristes where there was a cool flamenco dancer statue:

This is where the tour would then take us to the grand attraction of Granada, the Alhambra which according to the tour book is "the last and greatest Moorish palace and is one of Europe's top sights."  Well...we couldn't get a ticket in advance and wasn't up for getting on line for one of the "day-of" tickets at 7:30 in the morning, so a photo of Alhambra will have to do:

The famous Alhambra

On the way back we needed to find a bathroom so decided to find a place to have a beer and use their bathroom.  We noticed a sign up an alley and headed that way and found a place with a patio with a view of Alhambra where we had Alhambra beer.  If this doesn't count as experiencing Alhambra, then I don't know what does!

Since we are now drinking the tap water, I decided to try my luck at one of the cool public water fountains:

We saw so many cool doors today.  This is one of my favorites we came across:

Since we walked up one street to get a beer, we decided to continue climbing and was rewarded with a viewpoint with a great view of Granada:

We finally met up with Hanna after she was done with classes.  We met her host family and had a great time visiting with them.  We then went out for dinner (pizza) and on the way back we came across this awesome statue:

By 9:00 PM we were back at our apartment and very ready for bed after a long day of walking.  Tomorrow we leave Granada for a three-day weekend with Hanna to explore cities west and south of Granada.