We woke up well rested and ventured downstairs to the small kitchen for breakfast. There Julio (the owner of the hotel) was putting together breakfast for the guests, along with some help from a young lady. There looked to be about four other rooms in the place, so it was smaller than I had expected. They made us fresh orange juice (yum!), nespresso coffee (just like at home) and then served us some toasted breads, fruits, and butter and jam. They gave us a small loaf of sweet bread that was spiced with anise, and then later some plain toast with some very simple salsa to spread over it. Simple, easy, delicious.
The next step was to go check out the town. Granada is a fairly large town, and we were staying in the historical Arabian district. I couldn’t really notice the difference the previous evening when we came in, but walking around in the morning most buildings were very old, painted white with dark roofs. We really enjoyed walking around the town and poking around the corners. The streets were all cobblestone, and once in a while we’d meet someone walking the other way. There was a family riding by on Segway scooters that caught us by surprise. Just about everywhere we visited had some people trying to sell tours on a Segway. Weird. Eventually we found a church that overlooked the Alhambra palace. The view was pretty spectacular, and since we were planning on visiting the Alhambra in the afternoon, it was a good way to see the whole thing from a distance. There were a few people walking around and even a Japanese family of four taking pictures and enjoying the view. We asked the dad to take our picture – and he did a great job. You could tell he was very serious about photography. In return I took the family’s picture, but I think I hashed up the first shot. I was worried about getting everyone’s feet in the shot and I completely missed the Alhambra. The second shot turned out much better.
We continued sightseeing in the Arabian district, and found ourselves walking down a street that was right out of a movie. It was like exactly what you would see in a Hollywood movie if it called for a small town in Europe. We walked down the stone streets, with little stands selling produce on the side of the road and locals walking around greeting each other and gossiping. No tourists around really (except for us) and I wondered if they’d all return to doing something else after we passed. Other than that area, the streets remained empty, and it seemed like the tourists might be sleeping in a little. That was fine by us.
We stopped at our hotel for a quick toilet break, but caused a bit of havoc because they were cleaning our room at the time. They maybe thought we wanted to spend time in our room, not just use the toilet, but in the end we got it all figured out and hopefully didn’t hurt any feelings. Sometimes small places like where we were staying can be a little more delicate about their services. I did notice that our cleaning lady was quite attractive, and later Kuniko agreed that Spanish people in general that we had met tended to be for the most part pretty good looking. Our sample size was pretty small, though, so we figured we’d keep our eyes open.
So we were back on the street, walking towards the Alhambra. The Alhambra sits on a giant hill overlooking the Arabic district, and to get there you can either take a drive up the hill or hike up (like we were doing). The hike is up a back way, which means there weren’t many other people on the trail, and also that it was mostly shaded from the sun. It was a fairly steep climb, but probably what we needed after all the calories we took in during our stay in Turkey.
I had pre-purchased entry tickets into the Alhambra palace, but they weren’t valid until after 1:30 pm. They try to limit visitors into the buildings to try to reduce the overcrowding, and for that we were thankful. At first we couldn’t find the place to pick up our tickets, but after asking a few questions we figured it out. There were signs set up for people coming from the road, but no indicators for people hiking up the back of the mountain. Part of the experience of the Alhambra is to walk through the gardens that surround it. The gardens are beautiful, lush and extensive. All of the greenery gave us lots of shade to hide under as the temperature crept upward, and gardens, fountains, ponds, and waterfalls were everywhere. We spent a long time wandering through and enjoying the views. At one point we walked up some stairs to the upper level, and when I turned the corner and looked up the stairs I discovered that the short skirt wearing lady above us wasn’t wearing any underwear. Welcome to Spain!
To kill the last thirty minutes before our entry time came up we left the gardens and walked over to a small caf̩. There we had a couple of glasses of wine outside and watched the tours come and go. I managed to order everything in Spanish without too much embarrassment, and the wines were excellent. Even just wine by the glass it was better than what we usually drink at home Рand cheaper, too.
Finally we entered the palace after waiting in a short line. Someone ahead of us passed out from the heat, so it wasn’t just us feeling the effects of the weather. The interior of the Alhambra was absolutely beautiful. The influence of both western and eastern combined to make for a very unusual decorating scheme. I especially liked the tilework, and the fountains throughout the grounds were also beautifully designed. Most rooms had some kind of archway leading to a unique ceiling, some unbelievably intricate. One ceiling was star-shaped, letting light shine in different ways during the passing of the day.
We spent about an hour inside the palace going room to room and enjoying the architecture and beauty of it. Finally we finished up, and headed back down the hill to our hotel to rest up a bit. On the way back we stopped at a store to pick up some cold beer to drink, but the staff had just put their local beers in the fridge so they weren’t cold. Instead we bought the beer that was cold – Coronas. So it was that Kuniko and I drink cold Mexican beer on a terrace outside our hotel room in Spain. Later we had a chance to try the local beer (called Alhambra beer) and it turned out to be quite good – much better than I had expected. In our hotel room there was a card that said that they always had cold Cava in the fridge in the kitchen, and to help ourselves if we’d like. I ran downstairs to get a bottle, but the cleaning lady told me in Spanish that they didn’t have any – just more beer. I did my best to chat with her in Spanish, but I’m sure there was a lot of Japanese coming out of my mouth. She didn’t seem to care, and hooked us up with a couple of bottles of beer.
We took a nap to sleep off the afternoon beer, and then decided that we needed to get some food in our system. We ended up walking to a local town square that had tables set up outside of two small bars. We ate outside and enjoyed a tomato salad, potato and pepper tapas, braised rabbit on the bone, and some glasses of red wine. The place was still quiet since it was much too early for dinner, so we decided to head back to the church viewpoint that we had seen in the morning. Our plan was to take in the night view of the Alhambra. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same plan, and the place was starting to get crowded. Not only tourists, but musicians and street vendors also were hanging out around the area. Below the plaza there was a small restaurant with a nice view of the Alhambra, so we walked down there and got a table and a bottle of Cava. There we ate some delicious olives and Monchego cheese and waited until it got dark. It took a long time to get dark, though, and between talking, watching all the tourists lined up above us, and working on that bottle of Cava, I ended up drinking a little too much. If you read this entry carefully you can see that we drank pretty much the whole day combined with lots of walking and hill climbing. Luckily Kuniko steered us in the right direction to get home afterwards. I got some nice pictures of the Alhambra lit up, though, so mission accomplished.
