Off to Granada for the long May bank holiday, a sleepy bus ride after the previous night's excess. Granada is one of my favourite cities in Europe, Andalucía's youngest-feeling city, an exciting blend of the Spanish and the Islamic.
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| The Alhambra seen from the Mirador de San Nicolás |
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| Photo from a sunnier day back in 2011 |
In need of some R&R, our first stop was the luxurious Generalife gardens of the Alhambra.
The Islamic palace and fortress, over a thousand years old, is the most-visited attraction in the country, and dominates the city from high above. We avoided the crowds and soaked up the spring sunshine in the peaceful stillness of the rose garden. (A separate Alhambra photo essay is on its way.)
El Albayzín, the old Islamic quarter, is a fascinating maze of cobbled streets, narrow alleys and crumbling whitewashed buildings, and a great place to get lost for a few hours.
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After our first night out bar-crawling down Calle Navas, the best strip of tapas bars in the city, the following evening we were looking for something a bit different.
Restaurant Arrayanes is widely said to be the best Moroccan restaurant in Granada. We feasted on home-made tzatziki and rich hummus, and my pastela pollo (chicken pastille: a sweet, cinnamon-pastry encased parcel of meat, honey and nuts) was as good as any I've had in Morocco.
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| Pastela pollo |
Feeling full and sleepy, we drifted off to Hammam Al-Andalus, an opulent Arabic bathhouse. The heated plunge pools and steam room are intricately decorated like an Islamic palace, and we spent the night floating from pool to pool, sipping mint tea and feeling increasingly dozy. The hammam also has a Madrid branch; I've got a feeling I'll be spending a fair amount of time there in the months to come.
Feeling healthy and virtuous, we sank down into the plush sofas of one of Granada's many Arabic teahouses (teterías), sipped sweet, spicy teas and puffed out shisha smoke until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer.
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