El fin de semana en Granada

This past weekend I visited the city of Granada in the southeastern part of Spain, about a 3 hour bus ride from Sevilla. We left bright and early on Saturday morning and got to Hotel Alixares right around noon. Our hotel literally right next the La Alhambra, which we got to tour the next morning, and about 15 minutes walking distance from the center. I took a power nap, had lunch at the hotel, and then we went downtown and got a personal walking tour of the city. Granada was a lot more artsy than I expected, and there were hippies selling their jewelry on every street. We went to this one little plaza, which had an amazing outlook of the city and the Alhambra, and it was like a hippy market. They were all playing instruments, sitting in circles, and selling hippy jewelry and clothes (one was trying to sell weed brownies). I was in the middle of taking some pictures of the view, when all of a sudden I hear one of the hippies start screaming “AGUA! AGUA!” I was so confused when I saw everyone packing up their things into their backpacks, and I have never seen people move this fast in my life, I swear. And then I saw the police drive by and it all made sense. I guess agua is their code word. Ha.


After that little event we walked to see the Capilla Real, a really famous cathedral built for Los Reyes Catolicos, Isabel and Fernando. It was really impressive inside, but unfortunately we couldn’t take any pictures. It was so freezing in there though, that after the tour I was more than ready to get back to the hotel for dinner and a hot shower. On the way back to the hotel we stopped into a little "teteria" were we had tea and little arabic desserts. There were tapestries and candles everywhere, the cutest ambience ever. I want to find a place like that in Sevilla!
Around 11 30, (just after we missed the last bus into the city), I walked downtown with Jessica and Franny and we went to this really cute tapas bar next to the club we went to afterward. It was really fun, almost too much fun, and we didn’t get back to the hotel until after 5. This wouldn’t have been a problem, except for the fact that we had to tour the Alhambra at 8 30 in the morning. It was a struggle to wake up… but it was so worth it. La Alhambra was so impressive and one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. I took quite a few pictures, but obviously it doesn’t exactly translate onto pictures. After the tour, my exhaustion started kicking in and I just went back to the hotel and sat on the couches in the lobby until lunch, after which we left. We were only in Granada for a little over 24 hours, but it felt so much longer and I felt like I did and saw so much. It was all worth the lack of sleep.