Our first weekend trip was to another Andalucían city, Granada.
I give Granada an A+
It's like the Colorado of Spain! Mountainous, hippie, full of great.
The Alhambra with some Sierra Nevada thrown in there.
We left Sevilla on a Thursday evening train. It's about a 2-3 hour ride to the east from Sevilla. Discovered that I LOVE TRAINS. We take trains almost everywhere over here - they're flexible, relatively cheap and you don't have to worry about the size of your luggage.
Because this was our first weekend trip, that means that it was our first hostel experience as a group. I traveled with a group of 5 girls and we planned on meeting up with other friends once we were there, so we all booked the same hostel. I decided to make the reservation for us 5 so we would be in a room together.
Me, Veronica and Claire, triple bunking at Makuto Hostel.
That all seemed fine & dandy until we got to our hostel and found out that I had made the reservation for the wrong weekend. Whoops. The hostel was booked up! Double oops. Even at 11 PM, the man behind the desk was sweet as could be and helped us find a place to stay. We girls walked the dark, narrow, twisty, ill-marked streets of the Albaicin until we stumbled across our new hole-in-the-wall hostel, Makuto. It's a hippie heaven there - hammocks, tree house and kum-bah-yah circles were all there. That night, we met our friends at an Arabic tea house for some chats & laughs.
Granada has a huge Arabic presence... who knew?
On Friday, we woke up planning to go into the Sierra Nevadas. Some of our friends were going to ski & board, while the rest of us just wanted to sled & play in the snow! Mature. Well, after a series of events, we missed the last morning bus up into the mountains by 2 minutes. Plan B? Grab some coffee, move hostels (Makuto didn't have enough room for all of us to stay 2 nights), then go for a hike in a nearby town, Monachil.
Even though our new hostel was 0.3 miles away according to Google maps (is the best - true dat - double true), it took us an hour to find because several streets were mismarked and the numbers were out of order. Welcome to Spain! If you're going to get confused in a city, it should be in Granada. The little streets of the oldest part of town, the Albaicin, are so gorgeous and you really can't be frustrated when you're surrounded by that much beauty.
Moving hostels, getting lost, and takin' names.
We checked into our new, beautiful hostel (White Nest - highly recommend if you're staying in Granada!) and were so pleasantly surprised to find that we had heat, a room to ourselves, free towels, sheets, and our own bathroom with all the hot water anyone could ever ask for! Hostel heaven. Next endeavor was to buy tickets to see the Alhambra the next day.
On the way to buy tickets, our afternoon plans suddenly changed when I saw it there. In the town center. A segway. Calling my name. Silly confession: I've always wanted to ride a segway. It has seriously been on my physical bucket list for so long, but I've never gotten to cross it off. UNTIL NOW. Long story short, instead of hiking, we got to go on a segway tour of Sacromonte, an area of Granada famous for its caves! The tour was so fun. I couldn't wipe the stupid smile off of my face the entire 2 hours. We even got to sport these neon vests and silver helmets that say "I'm not a tourist!"
Go frogs, go segways!
A cave bar in Sacromonte. If you look closely, the sign over the door says
"Cocina del corazón mío" or "Kitchen from my heart"
After the tour of a lifetime, we booked it uphill through the albaicin to catch the sunset at Mirador San Nicolas. Everyone we talked to in Granada recommended that we go there, and man, they were spot on with their rec. It was a beautiful view of the Alhambra, mountains and city of Granada. We got to sit back, relax, and let the Lord do his thing with the sun.
Sunset from Mirador San Nicolas
After we got cleaned up back at the hostel, we had to go grab tapas. Tapas are special in Granada because they are FREE! High fivin' a million angels. All you do is buy a drink and they bring you food. Now that's my kind of city.
Through the magic of facebook, I got to see an old friend when we went out that night! I met Elita during my junior year of high school when I went to Europe for the first time. Our two high schools used the same tour agency to travel through London, Paris, Rome, Florence and Assisi. We got to be friends on that trip and it just so happens that we are both in Spain this semester. She met us for tapas, and we got to catch up on the past 4 years. What a great night. Another fun fact, she's a Chi O at the University of Evansville. Sisterhood!
Elita!
The next morning, we woke up early to go to the Alhambra, Granada's most famous sight. You could spend DAYS there. It's a huge Moorish-built palace that was taken over by the Catholic Kings after the Reconquest. It was intricate, completely beautiful and massive. I can't really describe it much more than that. My favorite part about the Alhambra was all of the patterns, tile work and colors throughout the grounds. It's really incredible.
Tiles and Darcie
After walking around for half a day, we left the Alhambra and grabbed lunch back down in the city. We were exhausted after a full weekend in Granada, so caught an early-evening train back to Sevilla.
Here's to good times in Granada. I'd love to go back when it's warmer and see more of what the city has to offer. We were happy to be back in Sevilla after a great weekend!
post-script: Granada is the home to some of the greatest graffiti I've ever seen! There's even tours dedicated to their graffiti. Google it.
