Viajes de Valerie: El Sur de España: Granada

Last weekend, a small group of us took advantage of our three day weekend (no classes on Friday) and went to the south of Spain. Ryanair doesn't fly to Granada, so we flew into Málaga on Thursday night, only to leave on a 9am bus to Granada on Friday morning. Luckily, as we quickly found out, there isn't a whole lot happening in Málaga, so we weren't missing out on a whole lot there. Tarah and I did run to the beach in the morning, though, so we could say we have touched the Mediterranean Sea. The bus ride from Málaga to Granada was only about an hour and a half and was very pretty. Mountains and orange trees. The bus had a display of the temperature and we could only see it continually rising. By the time we got to Granada around 11am, it was already at least 80 degrees.
We found our way toward the main cathedral in Granada and stopped for a cafe con leche (although what possessed us to order a hot drink, I'll never know). Once we had a bit more energy, we walked toward the Albayzin area of Granada, which is the part that has an Arabic influence. We wanted to find really good Middle Eastern food, but we essentially just walked up and down neighborhoods of the infamous white-washed houses. We ended up back by the Darro River where we had started as there was a full street full of restaurants. We knew we weren't going to eat for a while, so we all got the Menu del Día. Gazpacho, paella, warm bread, and hummus. And chocolate cream (actually, it was just pudding with whipped cream) for dessert). By this time, it was after 2pm and the sun was high in the sky. It was above 90 degrees, which was the hottest weather I've been in during my time in Spain. If it hits 70 in Santander, that is considered a hot day. We asked our waiter how to get to the Alhambra, our afternoon attraction. The Alhambra dates back to the 9th century! We could see it at the top of a hill from the restaurant, but weren't sure the fastest way to get there. Turns out the fastest way is to cross the river and make the steep climb up the hill. The climb was worth it though! We had tickets to see the Nasrid Palaces at 5:30pm, which meant we had about 2 1/2 hours to walk around Generalife (the gardens) and the Alcazaba (the fortress part). The gardens were beautiful with flowered arches and trimmed hedges. I really liked the cyprus trees that lined the walkways. We were able to climb up one of the towers in the Alcazaba, so we had great views of Granada. The palaces were huge. There were colored tiles on nearly every wall in shades of blue, green, and yellow. Throughout the palace and gardens were fountains and running water. You could definitely see the mix of Muslim and Christian influences in the architecture. After spending nearly 4 hours at the Alhambra, we found our way down the hill and to the train station for our late train to Sevilla. We were only in Granada for about 10 hours, but it was worth it to see Spain's most visited site.