This morning I left Cordoba and headed to Granada. I’m kind of proud that my extremely limited Spanish is getting just a wee tad bit less limited and I’m figuring things out and even asking some questions (as rough as they might be) in Spanish. I have found that the only problem with that is, even if I have completely butchered the construct of the question/sentence and made it with an obvious American accent, they respond thinking that I might know a wee tad bit of Spanish. So, learning to ask the question doesn’t get me very far because I haven’t the SLIGHTEST idea what the answer is. LOL You’ll see what I mean by that when I explain tonight’s dinner. Honestly, I laugh at myself.
I’ve been enjoying traveling across Spain by railway. The countryside is beautiful and is literally filled with olive groves. There’s almost nothing else. I’ve seen a vineyard or two and I think I saw a couple citrus groves. But mainly olives. Having seen so many olive groves, I would have thought then that Spanish Olive Oil would be more well known than Italian Olive Oil. Maybe it is and I just don’t know it.
I arrived early in Granada, but thankfully was able to check-in at my AirBnB. I picked this one because the description said that it looked up at the Alhambra, pretty much the reason why people come to Granada. And at only $70 a night was worth it (nearly twice what I normally spend, but wait till you see the pictures!). The host contacted me right after I arrived and asked if everything was satisfactory. If I had known it would be this nice, I might have chosen to stay longer.
The back balcony:
The little bridge and stream below the balcony:
I took this when the sun was shining at the balcony:
Here’s the view from the front terrace that looks out over the street:
After checking in, I’d heard that the other major sight to see in Granada is the Grand Cathedral, so I went for a walk to find it. Definitely click on the photo to enlarge it. To fully appreciate it, I thought it might help to see a scale model of it. This Cathedral is seriously massive. I know that the description says that it is one of the largest in Spain and Europe, but I’m not sure where in comparison it falls. I’ve seen some fairly large Cathedrals, but this dwarfs any that I’ve ever seen.
Construction began in 1537 and continued for several centuries. Here are pictures. I noticed as soon as I walked in that the traditional Spanish style - Choir box - was not in the center of the sanctuary. Later, I read that the Archbishop in 1930 wanted the full congregation to be able to see and participate more closely to the elements of the Sacrament and to the preaching of the word, so he had it dismantled. The two great organs on either side of the box remained. For scale, I tried to get a picture of someone standing next to one of the columns. There are 20 of them!
I don’t know the significance of these illustrated books, not even sure whether they are Biblical text or choral music perhaps in Latin. But what I do know and what you can’t really appreciate is the size of them. The books themselves are half my size - they are gigantic and they line the perimeter of the church in cases. I tried to get some closeups of the illustrated artwork in them.
Here is a picture of one of the outside entrances.
On my way back, I had lunch at Bodegas Castaneda. It was an enormous piece of cod with shrimp - thought I was back in the US due to its serving size.
At first I didn’t want dessert, but as I was walking back, I stopped at a little pastry shop and ordered something from the case that looked tasty. I tried to ask him what it was - what I heard was Bomba de nada, which doesn’t really make any sense - translated that would mean, “bomb of welcome”?
Anyway, it was delicious, not nearly as sweet as I was afraid it might be, so I liked it a lot.
I happened on a museum on my walk, which turned out to be the oldest museum in Spain. It looks like they were trying to tell the story of Spain and particularly of Granada and this area through a very select number of pieces. But it seemed a bit too minimalist, so I took pictures of the courtyard, flooring, and tile work.
Some architectural points of interest I came across. The sidewalks seem to be made of pieces of discarded marble. They are very slippery even when they aren’t wet. The geodesic shape is a street light.
And now dinner. I tried very ask a question in Spanish about their soup of the day. He didn’t laugh (out loud), so it must have been somewhat right. Of course, he then responded in Spanish. I had no idea what he said, but ordered it anyway. How bad could it be, right? And, as my friend Tim said, “It’s a good thing you eat basically anything.” Well…even though you can’t tell from the picture it was ham and hard boiled egg soup. Those yellow things floating around the top are egg yolks. And the broth was super salty. It was awful.
My second course was Carne en Salsa. Honestly, not much better than the soup. It was loaded with paprika and the fries were limp - I like a crunchy fried potato. Oh well, not all meals are fabulous. I was disappointed as the place I chose for dinner had been packed during lunch, so I figured it must be good.
The bright spot for dinner was that I got to eat with a Trident!
Here are my shots of the Alhambra. Tomorrow I have a tour of it, the Palaces and something called the GeneralLife. I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow night. Tourists normally take a bus, while locals usually walk. I’m determined to walk up to it in the morning.
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