GRANADA: Alhambra, El Albaicin, Nostalgia

For those that don’t know, Andrew studied abroad for a few months in Granada during high school, so this place has many nostalgic memories for him. He had gone back to visit once, about 7 years ago, with his 2 best friends when they traveled a bit after college. I was excited to explore this part of Spain with Andrew, knowing all that the city meant to him.

Upon leaving our hostel in Sevilla, a bit late might I add, we rushed to the train station to catch our train. I have to admit, we were cutting it a bit close time-wise (even for me), something Andrew was not super stoked on. We ended up making it with 10 minutes to spare though, so had time to grab a quick pic at the train station.

We got bored on the train and took the pictures below for Gabby & Dave, our friends who graciously gave us these glasses on our wedding night…

While on the train, they announced something about taking a bus, which left everyone, especially all the non-Spanish speakers aboard, a bit confused. Apparently they were doing work or some type of construction on the train, so we stopped a few cities prior to Granada and had to take a bus for the last hour into town.

After about 3.5 hours of traveling, we arrived in Granada. Upon entering our Airbnb, we were greeted by our host who showed us around the apartment and gave us some very useful tips and recommendations for exploring the city. The Airbnb in Granada was so cute and perfect for our stay. We highly recommend any couple stay here if you’re ever planning a trip to Granada. Reach out to us for exact info if interested.

Granada Airbnb:

We ended up checking out the local market and picked up a few breakfast & lunch items for the next few days. Once again, Andrew’s Spanish came through, as my Spanglish was rough.

Getting some groceries in El Supermercado:

We spent the afternoon exploring the city of Granada. The city is split into 2 parts, the older area (El Albaicin) and the newer area, which includes modern shops like H&M and Sephora. It’s pretty incredible that you can be walking through some of the older areas, then just a short walk down the road it turns very new & modern.

The most well-known attraction in Granada is Alhambra, an incredibly huge palace that sits upon the hills of Granada. Andrew knew about a great spot to check out Alhambra from afar, so we hiked up the steep hill to get some great photos. We ended up grabbing a drink at a local restaurant and waited for the sun to go down so we could see the lights that shine upon the Alhambra at night.

Mirador de San Nicolas – Alhambra View Point around sunset

All lit up at night!

It is worth noting that there were a lot of restaurants in Granada that reflected the influence of Arabic cultures, so we tried one of these restaurants for dinner. We enjoyed our meal, but we especially enjoyed the amazing chocolate & banana crepe for dessert. It had Nutella in the middle. Enough said.

On our 2nd day in Granada we again took advantage of the free walking tours offered by Feel the City tours, which was the same tour company we utilized in Sevilla. Our Granada tour guide gave us a thorough explanation of many attractions throughout the city, and once again, we were pleasantly surprised about the wealth of knowledge he was able to share with us.

We noticed they have many of these “free walking tours” throughout Europe, with various companies, and we’ve found it to be a great thing to do on your 1st or 2nd day in a new city. It gives you the opportunity to get a high level overview of the city and learn about certain areas you might want to check out at a later time.

Andrew inside La Dobla de Oro – Used to be housed by merchants who sold silk

Fountain in Plaza Nueva – one of the main plazas, very touristy

We wanted to try some authentic tapas for dinner, so we asked our tour guide if he had any recommendations. He recommended a place called Saint Germain, so we ended up checking it out that night. It was the best tapas meal have had thus far in Spain. It’s one of the more authentic places where you get a free tapa with every drink, so we ordered a couple of drinks and received a couple of free tapas. Very tasty. Let’s just say, we had planned to make dinner the next night, but ended up going back to Saint Germain instead since it was so good.

Andrew found another Irish pub in Spain so we were able to check out the Chelsea game after dinner! The drink I ordered, known in Spain as “Tinto Verano”, has quickly become my favorite drink. It’s a different twist on a sangria, and it’s delicious.

One last stop that night (per Andrew’s request) was for the famous Durum Kebab. He had mentioned that he had many of these during his travels in Europe after college with Daniel & David, so we had to try one. I was a bit skeptical, but had to admit, they were delicious.

Andrew and I were both feeling a bit under the weather for the last few days, but luckily we were starting to feel much better, so we woke up and went for an early morning run around the city. What a great way to see more of the city with barely anyone out and about yet. Later that morning, we headed up to explore Alhambra from the inside! As a quick note to anyone interested in checking this beautiful palace out, make sure you get your tickets ahead of time as they book up weeks in advance.

It was quite the steep walk up, took about 20 minutes and is pretty much all uphill. Once arriving, we noticed that the Alhambra is split into 4 different parts: Alcazaba, Generalife Gardens, Palacio de Carlos V, and Palacios Nacarios. Unfortunately the official audio guides were not currently available on the day we went, so we ended up downloading an audio guide app that took us through the 4 different parts of Alhambra. We spent the entire morning checking out the different parts of the palace and the many beautiful features housed inside.

Our very own tour guide app!

Beautiful features of the Palacios Nacarios

View of El Albaicin area (older area in Granada) from Alhambra:

Enjoying the beautiful gardens

Palacio de Carlos V … or as we liked to call it: Carlos’ Palace

Alcazaba portion of Alhambra – Served as a military function for the palace. Tall Towers.

Before heading to Saint Germain for one last tapas dinner before we left Granada, we checked out the Alhambra look-out point one last time, and were also able to walk by the school Andrew studied at back in high school!