ROAD TRIP to the south of Spain - Part 5 Granada, 2018

Granada - Cousins and Castles!

Hello and welcome to the Granda part of our trip, 

By this stage in our journey we were thoroughly buggered. Our legs were on strike and sleep seemed to become more of a priority so we decided to actually have a bit of a holiday.. also truthfully at this point all the mosques and cathedrals started to look the same. 

So we got from Gibraltar to Granada using a Bla Bla Car again (as in most of our previous legs of this trip). The drive was quite scenic as the road passed rather closely by the sea and the trip took about 3 hours. The beachside towns like Malaga were beautiful! Kyran even pointed out that there was a nudest beach or two along the way! As we arrived into Granada we were surprised to see the mountains that surround Granada (actually the Sierra Nevada) was still snow capped!! 

We arrived in Granada in time to crash and burn in bed but unfortunately my normally broken husband who never does anything romantic decided tonight was the night that he wanted to take me out to dinner as he had located a Vegan/ Vegetarian restaurant in the area. Here is some to the awesome food that we had. 

I guess I should explain that there was a certain excitement about finding a Vegan/ vegetarian place in the south of Spain as this is an area and a culture that eats a lot of meat and struggles to understand what a vegetarian is and why you would be that way!

Earlier in our trip we went looking and we found a place that advertised as 'vegetarian' but had veal on the menu. As if a baby cow was too small to be considered an animal or something!? I mean bravo for trying but it was hard to understand how in this day and age there are 'neanderthals' that can't fathom the concept of no meat entering their bodies in every meal. 

As we set out to do our trip to the south of Spain we were warned that we would struggle to find food and should face the very real possibility that we might get very hungry. 

Pfft! If you know us and have been following our blogs you know we can survive just fine with bread and tomatoes so we were OK, but that is why Kyran made me drag my sore and sorry arse to dinner when we arrived in Granada. 

After dinner it was straight to bed as we had to meet up with another cousin and his girlfriend (who we had not met yet) and were going to see what we could of Granada. 

FUN FACT: The word Granada in Spanish means Pomegranate in English!
The ancient city of Granada in Spain was renamed after the fruit during the Moorish period and today the province of Granada uses pomegranate as a charge in heraldry for its canting arms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomegranate 
Below: A photo of the bottom of a street light - A stylized pomegranate

If you Google 'what to see in Granada' the top thing you will find is:

Number 1. The Alhambra - see that? Number 1! Well our un-organised selves thought that we could wing it and just get tickets to see it the day before. We were wrong!
If you want to see the Alhambra you need to plan ahead and get your tickets as soon as possible. 
For me it was not a big deal as I had been in here when I was 12 and well it's nice and all but it is very similar to all the other Moorish architecture around.... I mean I know it is not the same, you have to see the Alhambra to have seen the Alhambra - but you have a general idea of what it might be like if you have seen the other Moorish architecture. In the end you get to see quite a lot of the castle grounds and surrounding area, so it's not that bad after all!

We made a day of walking around the bits of the Alhambra that we could, we walked past the palace of Charles V and then through some of the markets in the street and past the cathedral. 

Below are two very traditional Spanish things that I had not see any where on our trip up until now.
Left:  Ornate comb for use with an Andalusian lace headdress.
Right: Wine/Water drinking sack, very old-school style!

Like I said at the beginning, this part of our trip was more relaxed more just hanging out with family! We had a cook-up with fresh food that we had got on our early morning walk and played some cards until the sun was setting as we had been told that we were to walk to the other side of town to see the Alhambra from a distance all lit up!

After our walk to see the Alhambra at night (stunning views!) from the observation area up the hill at Mirador de San Nicolas we decided to wonder down around town for a bit. 
Here are some photos from our late night walk around Granada.

Plenty of people collecting in small groups, having chats and eating/drinking down by the river (which was super low..)

On the hilly climb up steep and narrow streets, to the viewing area of Saint Nicholas to see the Alhambra at night. The terraced steps were very interesting!

Plaque above belongs to area where the photo below was taken.

(Which is also the place I got the awesome hippy pants that you see me wearing)

 Below: A piece of graffiti that we saw in Granada... translated it says: Veganism is Justice!

Well that is really all there is to this last leg of our journey. The next blog will be our last day running around Madrid and a little hike we went on. 

Until next time thank you for reading our blog 

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