Holiday in Granada

I brought back a lot of photos from Spain as I promised before I went to Spain. In total I took 575 photos but as you can imagine it’s taken me some time to sort and edit everything. In this blog post there are some of the photos we took in Granada, Spain, but in the next blog I will share photos we took in Madrid.

This was my first time been to Spain and we absolutely loved Granada. The weather there is awesome and the tapas are amazing, especially as they are free! I read Granada is not famous for food but it’s the only city in Spain that still serves tapas for free. Most of the tapas bar sell small size beers for 1 to 2 euros but the bar man will service tapas and each round of tapas is different. But it’s all tasty. You can use a little bit of money to plan a “tapas trip” in Granada. Try every tapas bar and decide which one is the best tapas bar to you.

This is my favorite tapas bar in Granada, “Cerveceria La Boveda”. The bar man who serviced us was really nice but the food was really really tasty.

Except the tapas bars, Arabic style tea houses are another cool and chic choice for your holiday. We went to this Arabic tea house to have afternoon tea to refresh and avoid the high temperatures outside. The temperature in the afternoons often approached 30 degrees, which doesn’t sound hot but we live in Edinburgh which although beautiful is often cold, windy and/or wet. I ordered a liquorice tea which cost 3 euro and Chris ordered a Vanilla smoothie for 2.5 euro.

These photos are about local Spanish people who live in Granada. I feel life in Granada is so relaxing. Every shop and restaurant close at 4 pm and city is empty at 4pm.

This is the best kebab I had in my life. I bought it from a random kebab shop on the street in Granada. It cost me 3 euro but it’s so so so tasty. I’ve never been Turkey, Egypt or Greece that part of world so I only can compare with the kebabs one can buy in the UK. Maybe because Granada was the last city to be occupied by the Arabs but the Arabian culture and architecture is quite prominent in Granada so we were treated to great middle eastern kebabs as well as teas.

This is “Basilica De Ntra Sra De Las Angustias”. A very beautiful church in the city centre of Granada. The outside of this church looks very ordinary. But the inside of the church looks amazing. The decorations are gorgeous, it’s not hard to tell that Spanish people are very religious from the gorgeous decorations of the church. This church is very popular and it’s always full of people.

I think this church open at morning and close around 1:00 afternoon and reopen again after 6 pm. I can’t tell you if this information is right because this church didn’t have any English information about opening times and I asked random local Spanish people when the church will open again today. A lady used her fingers to indicate “6” to me. Then she just talked a lot of Spanish to me but I only can understand uno, dos in Spanish…lol This is another big problem about travel in Spain. It’s not very easy to travel in Spain if you don’t understand Spainish. A lot of Spanish people can’t speak English or they don’t want to help you if you speak English. But what’s the point for a tourist like me who only go to Spain for 1 week to learn a lot of Spanish? I probably won’t use it again in the future. (Come on Spanish people please learn more English. I’m a just a tourist and don’t know a lot of Spanish, please help me when I travel to spain.)

This church’s roof is so pretty. Every corner of this church is well decorated. It even has a beautiful angel stature beside the roof window.

One of our main reasons for going to Granada was to see my best friend Lorenzo who lives in Granada. He was my colleague while I worked at Sheraton Hotel. He is also an excellent Italian chef who travels and works around Europe. We stayed at his place with his lovely Spanish friend Jorge. They helped us a lot when we travel around Granada. Thank you guys so much. xoxoxo 😀

We had this “Mariscal Platter” in the “Mariscal Delicatessen” as our second day’s breakfast. From the top of the plater are Jamon, Spanish black pudding, Chorizo, morcellr, Pork terrine, salami and Salchichon. It tasted wonderful and cost 7.50 euro.

This is the other side of Mariscal Delicatessen. One side of the shop is bar and restaurant and the other side they sell a lot of meat and vegetable products. You can see a lot of local people, grandmas and housewives doing their daily food shopping there. The bar man at Mariscal delicatessen was really friendly and helpful and thank god for us he could speak English.

This is Granada Cathedral. We didn’t go inside of this cathedral. The reason we didn’t want to go inside was because we had to pay but most importantly we weren’t allowed to take photos. We like church architecture but neither of us are Catholic/Christian so there’s not a lot of point going in. Beside this cathedral there are a lot of shops. You can buy a lot of gifts for friends and family.

Tasty “Churros” with amazing hot chocolate. We went to Cafe Futbol to have this amazing dessert- “churros”. Churros taste a little bit savory and because it’s been deep fried the pastries texture is a bit crispy on the outside but soft inside. The chocolate was surprisingly thick and not too sweet too. Churros with Hot chocolate is a really great dessert. 3.30 euro for churros and hot chocolate.

Tasty fried seafood platter – 22 euro and the tapas we got. Beer- 2 euro. The waiter can speak English and also very helpful. I like the service here and also the food.

First photo is St. Nicolas Church on Albacin. The second photo is the view from Albacin. You can see the Alhambra from Albacin. I deeply feel the best way to travel around Granada is by foot. We walked around Granada most of the time which allows us to stop and take a lot of photos. It’s really easy to walk around Granada. However you do need to have pair of iron legs. lol There also have bus that you can take from Granada cathedral. The bus number is 32. Single ticket per person is 1.20 euro and the bus drive can give you the change which is so convenient.

On the way walked to Albacin we saw so many cute pets. The brilliant weather not only makes people happier but also the animals. The cat was having his siesta and didn’t want to lift his head for anything while the dogs barked at anything that moved.

It surprised me how tasty Spanish ice cream can be. All the ice cream shops have so many different kinds of flavors. All the ice cream tastes a little bit the same when you buy it in the UK but you can taste all the different ingredients in the ice cream when you buy it in Spain. I had pine seed and caramel ice cream in this shop and the ice cream can actually taste the toasted pine seed flavor with the real caramel taste. I’m not a sweet tooth at all but I love the ice cream here.

These photos were taken inside of Alhambra. Unfortunately we went to Alhambra too late so all the tickets to the main palace were sold out. Prices were 6 euros for a ticket to the gardens and 12 euros for a ticket which allows access to everywhere. Alhambra is the most popular tourist spot in Granada and rightfully so, it’s absolutely beautiful but I suggest if you want to see Alhambra properly get there early and don’t end up like us!

In the end of my Granada travel blog, I shared with you Chris’s panoramic view of Granada City. I hope you will enjoy my blog and think about traveling to Granada for your next trip. Granada is a beautiful city with tasty food and people there are generally friendly and helpful. We had a lot of fun there and I hope you will too. My next blog will be my trip in Madrid.