Granada

May 25, 2021

We visited Granada once long ago, and honestly I didn’t remember that much except the Alhambra of course, and an old man playing guitar in a tapas restaurant. Granada is about 2 hours away by train from Malaga, with a change in Antequera (Tix at Renfe.com around 25€ each way). We arrived on Friday afternoon for a weekend getaway and the first thing we saw was about a billion college students all heading toward the city center, with that ready-to-party look I remember distinctly. Granada has 8 universities, with the Univ. of Granada being by far the largest. Lots of foreign kids come here to study Spanish, which, as we all know, is just a euphemism for getting laid.

We checked into the Hotel Palacio de Santa Ines, which sounds like a fancy shmancy hotel, but is small and charming, right in the old town, just off the river. We got a small double room with a view of the Alhambra for around 100€ per night.

As always, tickets to the Alhambra should be booked online in advance and they are pretty strict about it, especially during covid. Once inside the complex you are free to wander on your own time but the entrance to the Nasrid Palace itself is very controlled. If you are there 5 minutes early you’ll stand in the shame corner, like you tried to board the plane before your group was called.

If you haven’t seen photos of the Palace and surrounding structures and gardens, you are in for a treat. This was one of the most important Islamic structures in all of Spain and it was added to by successive rulers, first as citadel, then royal palace and gardens and finally, after 1492, it came under the control of those pesky Catholic monarchs when the Moors were expelled from Spain. There is a lot to see so take your time. You can hire guides at the entrance or in the city beforehand, they give you a lot of information.

We had dinner one night at the wonderful Negro Carbón Albayzín, a steak restaurant just across the river from our hotel. We also discovered a charming place for breakfast since the hotel breakfast room was a little claustrophobic. The Alhamra is on the Gran Via de Colon, they serve very good breakfast dishes as well as a variety of traditional Arab dishes. We ate there every morning. There are tapas places everywhere. No really, everywhere.