Granada, Spain
From the beach in Calpe, we drove our rental car through the Sierra Nevada mountains to the city of Granada. Granada is home to one of Spain’s most-visited sites, the Alhambra. This is a massive Moorish fortress that is believed to have been started in the 9th century. This is a massive complex built over the centuries and contains several gardens and palaces. Granada also claims to have the best tapas in Spain, so we had to try it out.
Visiting Granada in August is not advised as we understood the crowds would be at peak level and the temperatures were well past 100. That said, we were not sure when we’d be back and did not want to pass up on the chance. We both agreed, it was worth the 1/2 day drive to get a taste of the city and a tour of the Alhambra. Spain limits the general tickets sold directly to the public for this fortress and they were sold out through November by the time we looked. So, we booked a 3rd party tour guide as they apparently have access to tickets themselves…? Anyway, this place is so large and has so much history over centuries, it’d be tough to do without a guide.
We arrived in Granada at mid-day and spent the day exploring the old quarter and testing the tapas claim -very good, but I’d still rank Barcelona on top for me. At sunset we joined a few hundred of our closest friends at a popular outlook to capture the views of the fortress at sunset. The next morning, our tour kicked off and lasted about 4 hours. Well worth the money and our guide did an awesome job of keeping Zach, who was the only kid, engaged by showing us the pit where they dropped the prisoners into. Pretty sure not many actually ever came out of that pit. She also described some of the more interesting legends associated with the palace, such as the bloody room. All things that added a human element to the architecture and gardens.
By late afternoon, we grabbed a city bus back to pick up our bags at the hostal and went to the Granada bus station. Next stop is Madrid Airport as we are off to Portugal.
