Granada

After arriving in Granada from Madrid, we found our hostel accommodation tucked away behind the big cathedral and down one of the Morroccan-esque alleyways. We were to only be in Granada for 2 days but after both feeling a bit under the weather we decided on 3 days to get a better feel for the place after a bit of rest.

The main reason for heading to Granada though is to visit Alahambra. Alahambra is a large palace built for a Moorish king in the 1100s. It was a pretty fascinating place.

The gardens were immaculate after plenty of restoration, but still held the original feel of the place. The palaces and buildings were very intricate too, with Islamic inscriptions and symbols filling nearly all the wall space and arch ways. The most impressive aspect to Alahambra for me is where it is situated – It sits on the hillside overlooking the city and looking southwest over the farming plains beyond the city limits. Behind and to the east of it are the Sierra Madre mountains that would make some awesome mountain biking and road riding…it wasn’t far from my mind looking to the hills! 

We went on another free walking tour with a quirky English guy that now calls Granada home, and learnt plenty of interesting facts about the place. But the one that stood out were the beautiful old homes in the UNESCO heritage area that in 1995 were selling for 6000Euros each, and now sold for 150,000Euros. Everyone in our group sort of gasped, but Louise and I looked at each and though geez we should buy here instead of Auckland! At the tour we met a cool Aussie couple that had been travelling for awhile, and went and had a bucket of beers and some Tapas with them so we could get their advice on Morrocco, as the plan is to wind up our travelling there with Tim and Helena and head to the Moroccan coast for a surf camp. 

Seeing as we had had a big day we didn’t really feeling like cooking, but didn’t want to spend too much money at a restaurant we didn’t really want to visit. So we decided another kebab was in order to hold me over. We walked the streets and past two thinking there would be some closer to home…wrong! What felt like 2 hours of further weekend, I went to bed after snacking on the leftover bread. When we stopped over in Seville the next day I was still a bit hungry and all I could think of was a kebab, so we went in pursuit of another kebab place. After walking for a little while I was getting a bit Hangry again, but in the distance Louise excitedly pointed out a Turkish flag which was a surefire sign for a kebab place…wrong! It was the Turkish Consulate! I couldn’t believe it. Fortunately 30mins later we stumbled upon another kebab place which was lucky as I was about to have a meltdown. All loaded up and happy with my kebab fulled stomach, we packed for our bus trip to Lagos.