Day 239 Granada, Spain
What else do you do in Granada apart from visit La Alhambra? Well, it is a beautiful city to just walk around. We walked everywhere even though there seems to be a good system of buses. We walked along the Rio Genil (river) all the way to the Parque Federico Garcia Lorca, a large garden with a good size playground for kids; and all the way back to our hotel again. All up about a 5 km walk. Once we made it to the park we treated ourselves with our picnic lunch with groceries that we had purchased on the way.
Steve and Patrick headed back to the hotel earlier for a rest whilst Harris and I walked further to find the El Corte Ingles department store. We had a brief look around the store and the adjoining large Hipercor (hypermarket). Supermarkets are always fun to look around. Have I mentioned how much Spaniards love their ham? Just take a look at the jamon section of this supermarket. You can even buy a special holder for your leg of cured ham.
After making ourselves hungry at the Hipermarket we headed back towards our hotel through the old part of town to see the area around the Catedral. Construction of the Catedral commenced in 1505 and the streets around the Catedral are all pedestrian streets with little tourist shops. The shops sell everything from mosaic bulls to Turkish style clothing – we didn’t buy anything but you should could walk away with a lot of ‘stuff’ if you wanted to!
We met up with Steve and Patrick at 5.30pm at a local restaurant/tapas bar.
1.70 Euro each bought one beer and 3 tapas for Steve and I but the boys soft drinks cost 2.50 Euro each (would cost 85 Euro cents in a supermarket). What a rip off. Next time we ask before buying a bloody soft drink! That’s obviously how they make their money.
Harris and I had bought some groceries before meeting up for tapas so we returned to the hotel; off loaded what we didn’t need and took the dinner groceries to the local park around the corner. The boys played in the small playground whilst Steve and I assembled sandwiches for dinner. We’ve eaten a lot of sandwiches for lunch and dinner in Granada due to an abundance of fresh baguettes and a wide selection of cheeses and meat; healthy and cheap.
Most of our grocery meals cost us 8 Euro, to feed us all; rather than 5-8 Euro each for food in a restaurant. Since we were saving money with cheap dinners, we splurged one night and bought a special dessert from the supermarket freezer section. We didn’t know exactly what it was but later when slicing it saw it was a type of icecream cake that is very popular in Spain. Our dessert cost us 4.50 Euro for a huge icecream cake roll; a slice of this in a cafe would be the same price no doubt. Sorry no photos. We ate it before thinking about a photo!
Our last evening in Granada had been very relaxing and enjoyable; in fact our whole time in Granada had been wonderful. It is certainly a place that I would consider returning to. It is a popular place to study Spanish so maybe next time I will come here. I had chosen Marbella for my course because Steve could take the kids to the beach when I was at school, but one day when we don’t have to consider kids … aahh the possibilities!
Adios Granada!
Hi there.
Great to hear from you. Amazing that you get to your destinations. Jumping onto a train withouot an announcement is quite scary. You could end up anywhere. We have just realised that you are within 100 days of coming home – 97 days in fact. Karlee is happy. Will email today, love to all, Mum and Dad.