On to Granada

We took the train from Madrid to Granada. It's the slow train - takes 4.5 hours, but there's some pretty scenery along the way. We were in first class again, so we were served dinner and it was pretty good. Dad even ordered some brandy after. He also beat me in 5 games of backgammon. I must be losing my touch. The train was late, so we took a cab from the train station to where we were supposed to meet Christian. We rented a place from airbnb.com, which is a site where you can rent places from people. It can be a single room or an entire place. We rented a little apartment near Plaza Nuevo from Sabrina and Christian. He met us to give us the keys and show us around. He was very helpful! Gave us a map and showed us lots of places to try around town. The apartment is small, but cute. There was one bedroom with two twin beds, a living/dining/kitchen area and a small bathroom with a washing machine (but no dryer). 

Thursday - We got up early this morning as we had a 9:30 tour booked for the Alhambra. We stopped at a little place close by for coffee and I had some toast with a LOT of butter and some marmalade. It was pretty tasty, but another bad day for my arteries. ;)



We arrived at the Alhambra on time, but by the time we got our tickets, we were a little late and had absolutely no idea where to go. We decided to just go in anyway and wandered around on our own for a while. There were two places we couldn't get into because we weren't with the group, so the lady radioed someone and we met up with him and he took us to meet the group. Our tour guide was really nice and it was good we met up with them. Then we were able to get into the Palacios Nazaries (the Palace) which is apparently the best part of the palace... and what dad had wanted to see most.

The Alhambra is the last and greatest Moorish Palace (according to the guidebook). It consists of:

- Palacios Nazaries - the Moorish Palace
- Charles V Palace - or the start of it anyway - it was never finished
- Generalife Gardens - the manicured gardens
- Alcazaba - the fort with tower and great views

It took us until 2 o'clock to finish there - it was a long day at the Alhambra. We walked back down near the apartment and stopped at a fun bar for drinks. Christian had informed us that in Granada (and I think it's the last city in Spain to continue this tradition), if you order drinks, you get free tapas. I had an orange juice and dad had a beer and then they just brought us bagel type sandwiches and fries (it wasn't a small tapas!). They were actually pretty good and dad ate them even though they had ham on them. I had another juice and dad tried the sangria (we're in Spain after all!) and then we got something resembling burgers brought to us. They weren't as good, but we ate them anyway. Only 9 euro for our four drinks. Then we went back to the apartment for a siesta.

We got up around six and headed back out into the city. Wandered through the plazas and got some ice cream. We tried to find a flamenco place, but it didn't pan out, so we continued up to the San Nicolas viewpoint - where you can see the whole city. It was beautiful! The Alhambra was all lit up and it sort of just glows on top of the hill. Well worth the uphill walk.

On the walk up to the caves

Friday - Got up around nine this morning, packed our bags, stopped for coffee and headed up to the Sacromonte. The Cuevas Del Sacromonte or Caves of Sacromonte is a little neighborhood comprised of caves carved into the mountain. It was still a functioning Roman community into the 1950's. They've set it up as a museum now so you can go into each cave. Some of them show how they lived and some show how they worked. It's a pretty good walk to get up to the museum (lots of uphill), but it was a beautiful day and a nice walk.

We strolled back into town after the museum and went to a place for tapas. I ended up ordering a diet pepsi (broke my year-and-a-half streak without soda) and dad had wine and they brought us our free tapas. :) Then we had some ice cream and did a little shopping. We picked up our bags and headed to the train station. Off to Seville!