“When you visit…” is a blog series about things you’ll want to know before you visit a city. Advice comes from my experience in the city, and is more about “prepare yourself for…” than about “OMG SUCH PRETTY SO WOW.”
This one’s about Granada, Spain.
Granada is huge. Granada is complex. Granada is modern.
Granada is stop number three of four on our trip through Spain. We’re here for two days. The city is huge, to be sure. But, there are more interesting things to discuss.
#1: La Alhambra
La Alhambra (Spanish for “The Alhambra”) is a vesitge of Muslim rule that was built somewhere around 1300 CE. In its day, it was a fortified palace complex with an amazing view of the surrounding area. These days, it’s a major tourist attraction with an amazing view of the surrounding area. Someone invent a time machine so we can all show Mohammed ben Al-Ahmar our photos.
To see La Alhambra, properly, you’ll need to purchase tickets in advance (we bought ours a month in advance). The ticket isn’t for La Alhambra, though. You can walk around the general complex without paying anything. The ticket lets you enter the “Palacios Nazaries,” the “Alcazaba” and the “Generalife” portions of the complex (the palacio is the palace, Alcazaba is the fortress, and Generalife is the massive garden). Going guideless (as we did) will give you extremely little in the way of a history lesson. What you will do is walk through restored rooms in a palace and gardens surrounding the palace for about 2 hours. Your dogs will surely be barking after its all over, but the journey will be beautiful.
#2: Eating Stuff : Sevilla :: Buying Stuff : Granada
If you read my post on Sevilla from a few days ago, then you’ve seen the word “tapa” about a million times. Granada is much less about the tapa, and much more about modern shopping. It’s a metropolitan city with an evidently-high quality of life. Electronics. Designer fashion. Alternative fashion. Other stuff. It’s all here, and it’s all over the place.
Another way to put this: In Sevilla, you turned down a narrow alley because you heard that there are excellent tapas somewhere in there. In Granada, you turned down that alley because you heard there’s a Zara somewhere in there.
#3: But Granada Still Has Tapas Bars
Even though Sevilla is much closer to what you might call “Tapas City,” Granada will still give you what you crave. We visited a street called Navas, right off of Plaza del Carmen. Word of mouth has it that Navas is the place to go for tapas.
Things are a bit different, here, than in Sevilla. In Granada, ordering tapas requires a seat at the bar. Anywhere else, and you’re ordering “Medias” or “Raciones.” That just means you’re ordering half-plates or full plates. Other than the sizes, medias, raciones and tapas are all exactly the same food. A half plate is roughly equivalent to tapas for two people, for example. Meals are less modular at a table, but they’re just as satisfying.
A perk offered by tapas bars in Granada is that ordering a beer comes with a free tapa (whether or not you’re sitting at the bar). So, that’s something.
This completes the main circuit of our trip. Tomorrow, we take a bus to Malaga, and the following morning we fly back to Munich. Because of the short stay, I likely won’t be able to say much about Malaga beyond “there’s a beach there.” But who knows?
Check back soon for the report!