I'm a big fan of Granada. It's probably my favorite Spanish city only behind Madrid, but that's because I'm pretty biased towards metros. It's a very walkable town, full of small alleys not unlike Tangier. Unlike Tangier they follow a mostly grid pattern, and are more lively, as the bars and restaurants expand their seating to cover as much as they can. There's actually a lot of Arab influence in Granada, with a sizable Muslim population and lots of the same kind of food we saw in Morocco (for 4x the price).

I think what really won me over about Granada is that they do tapas the way I thought all of Spain did - when you buy a drink, you get a snack. What I didn't expect is that the snack was massive. Like, we would buy a beer and get a whole charcuterie board to go along with it. I don't know how they make money, because a drink is between €2 and €3. It's like this town is encouraging you to get drunk, because 2 tapas are pretty much a meal for us. It's not just cold cuts and bread either, we got tapas of chicken curry, paella, mashed potatoes, tortillas (the Spanish egg kind), you name it. We'd also get some supermarket fruit or salad to have some semblance of nutrition, but along with a free breakfast from the hotel, our daily expenses were surprisingly low.

We spent 4 nights in Granada. Which I think was just about the right amount, because on our last day we didn't really have anything to do. We got to see an art museum of course, and a lovely garden. However the big tourist site in Granada is the Alhambra. It's a fort/palace from when the Moors controlled Spain, and is an extremely popular place to visit. Actually, it's the number one tourist attraction in all of Spain. However since we decided to go to Granada about 48 hours prior, we had no chance in hell to get these tickets that sell out months in advance. From the office they're €20, but of course scalpers have them for €50. 20 is already a lot in my opinion, but hey, maybe it's worth paying the extortionate price? So I watched a tour online to see. And a after watching a few videos, I came back with a strong "meh".

I mean, I can't say for sure, but I don't see what the fuss was about. It reminded me of a lot of palaces we saw in India and Morocco, and the fort part looked exactly like the one in Malaga. There were a handful of rooms that made me think "Actually I wouldn't mind seeing that." And later I learned about half of them were on the palace grounds, where you didn't need a ticket to visit. So I feel we got to see the highlights, as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't mind trying another "proper" visit someday, but I'm not in a rush.

But I think I know why Ella wanted to visit Granada, because it has so many churches and catholic-related art. We probably went to a dozen churches, and even I have to admit, they were pretty beautiful. I even got talked into paying €7 to visit the Granada Cathedral, and kind of wow. Other than The Vatican, I think this is the most impressive church that I've seen. But another church I was really impressed with was a random one we found while walking around, called the Parish of Mary Magdalene - very unassuming on the outside, but very beautiful on the inside. We had to check their schedule and catch the end of a mass, because they only open during services. I'll attach photos of that, and some of the monasteries we went to - although I sat out for a few while Ella got to explore by herself. I joined her to see Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, and yeah... I gotta admit, the chapel looks pretty amazing. It also is no longer an active church, so it was interesting to get to go up near the altar and look around. Actually, this seems like a good place to dump all the church photos, because some are very wow.

However, Granada wasn't all churches and copious amounts of wine. Sort of like how we were visiting Bali during an earthquake, we just so happened to be somewhere that became the center of intentional news. If you missed it, all of Spain and Portugal had a blackout, and it really was a blackout. Like, everything was out - no streetlights, no ATMs, even metros and trains stopped where they were. It happened just around lunch time, and of course everyone assumed it was some small glitch in this part of Granada. There was no internet, or even cell service, so all day we had no idea this affected the whole country. Eventually the news spread via word of mouth that this is actually a big deal. This was a little concerning, because suddenly you couldn't pay for anything by card. We hadn't visited the ATM in a while, and we didn't have much cash or know how long this would last. We took stock what we had and went to a store to buy a bunch of cheap bread and stuff, so at least we'd have something to eat for a few days. We managed to go early enough that the grocery still had their generator running, but only for the registers - that means it was a fire sale to empty out the refrigerated food before it spoiled. We scarfed down some bread along with a massive piece of brie cheese, putting us into a food coma. Ice cream shops also were selling everything for a steal, except for one very smart gelato shop that invested in a generator. We walked around town, and it had a good vibe to it - cops and volunteers were directing traffic when necessary, everyone was out on their balconies or in parks, and lots of people busted out the instruments. It's weird to think about, but the city sort of came more "alive".

With lights in the whole country out, I realized that this is actually a pretty amazing chance to go stargazing in the evening. There were a lot of buildings around us though, so we wanted to go to the park about 5 minutes away. That was an interesting experience. There was no moon, so it really was completely dark. It's sort of post-apocalyptic kind of mood to be going around a large city with no lights on. People were using their phone flashlight to navigate, and even more interesting, everyone started making noise to announce their presence. But once we got to the park we looked up, we saw more stars than I had seen in years. And we passed by that one gelato shop, with a line snaking out the door - generator still going strong, itself a bright star itself in a sea of darkness.

So in summary, Granada: beautiful art, cheap drinks, complimentary food, walkable city layout. A pretty great combination to me, and I'd love to come back, Alhambra or not. I'll finish with a lot more photos, because I really like it here.