Friday afternoon, Emily, Grace, and I took a bus from Sevilla to Granada. It's about 3 hours through country side and some mountains. We stayed in another Oasis hostel and found the experience to be just as good. It took a while to find the hostel, which was tucked away up a cobblestone street so narrow that it was closed to cars. We ate dinner at the hostel, which was easily the best deal in town -- home-cooked food (Friday was stir fry and Saturday was paella), all you can eat, for 5 euros.
After dinner, we walked around the city and wandered through a park. There were lots of people walking around and we followed a group of tourists up a hill. We found some very old looking towers and a big patio leading up to an amazing view of the entire city, all lit up in the darkness. It was breathtaking. We sat there for about 20 minutes, enjoying the view and talking about our trip.
Saturday morning we woke up early to get in line for tickets to visit the Alhambra, Granada's biggest and most famous attraction. They allow 8,000 visitors per day, and 80% of the tickets are sold ahead of time, mostly online or through tour groups. The remaining tickets are available to buy at the gate, beginning at 8am every day. So we went and lined up at 8am (in the rain) and eventually got tickets.
The Alhambra is essentially a collection of palaces, gardens, and military fortresses on top of a hill, built during various time periods dating back to the 1300s when the Moors occupied Andalusia. If you're interested you can read more about it here: http://www.andalucia.com/cities/granada/alhamhistory.htm or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra
Despite the rain, we spend more than three hours walking around and visiting the different parts of the Alhambra. Here are some of my favorite parts:
The photo above was taken from the top of the tower, right near the flags, in the photo below. I love how you can see all the way to the Sierra Nevada mountains, even on a cloudy day. Granada is SO cool!
The hostel offered free night tours of the city. I was the only American and only native English speaker on the tour, but it was conducted in English anyway. Love how that happens. The tour explored the hill opposite the Alhambra, and we got to see houses built into caves in the Arabic quarter of the city. I thought this one was particularly cool.
The Alhambra looked beautiful when the sun went down.
The Arabic influences in the city are very strong. Walking around near the hostel, we could see a million little shops selling lamps, jewelry, clothing, and other goods. It felt very different from the other cities we visited. I liked Granada a lot.
Late Saturday night, we took a 3am bus back to Sevilla (yeah, you read that correctly. If you can tell me why a 3am bus exists, I would really appreciate it), then we caught an 8am flight back to Barcelona. Again I was amazed and happy that returning to Barcelona felt like going home. I missed Amparo and her cooking :)
No comments:
Post a Comment