In all my Spanish classes, I have learned about Granada and all of the history that is encompassed within the city. So, when I went to the city this weekend, I cannot begin to explain how excited I was to finally see all that I had learned about in the past.
En todos de mis clases de Español, he aprendido sobre Granada y todo de la historia que está en la ciudad. Así, cuando fui a la ciudad este fin de semana, no es posible explicar como estaba emocionada.
When we arrived to the city, we immediately started with our typical city tour. First, we visited the Plaza De Bib-rambla, the old historical center of the city. Here, where they had some markets, they would chop off the hands and other body parts of thieves to display their strict rules on robbery.
Next, we visited the Capilla Real, the cathedral where the first Catholic kings and queens are buried. This was so cool! Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed within, so I did not manage to get any pictures of the beautiful tomb built for Queen Isabella. One of the most fasicanting details that I saw was how her head was pressed into the pillow much more deeply than the other kings and queens around her – our guide informed us that this was made so to represent how intelligent she was, making her head heavier than the rest.
Don´t tell anyone, but when I went down below the tombs, I managed to get a picture of their actual coffins without getting caught! This was so bizarre because I had expected ornate coffins to match the gorgeous tombs, yet only simple stone coffins lay there, holding the bodies of the great first Catholic kings and queens of Spain.
The middle right coffin is for Isabella, and the middle left is for her husband.
We then took a little walk over to the marketplace where many vendors sold a wide variety of goods, from jewelry to tapestries to lamps. Here, I completed another bucket list item – I successfully bargained in Spanish with one of the vendors! I can´t say what I bargained for as it is a gift for my mom and I want it to be a surprise, but I will say I´m happy with the price I haggled to!
Afterwards, we visited a place that used to be the cultural center for the poor of Granada. Homes used to be on the upper floors of what is now a local theatre, while in the center children would play and in the afternoons, there would be theatrical shows.
The entrance
Next, we ventured off to a viewpoint of La Alhambra called “Mirador de San Nicolas.” I would’ve taken significantly more pictures here if it wasn’t such an exhausting trip in 85* heat, but here’s what I managed because this view was phenomenal:
You can see the snow-capped mountains in the distance if you click on this picture to get the full effect!
Because I was too exhausted from the climb to get here to really pose hahaha
Then, we headed back to our hotel to have a siesta and lunch, which I took full advantage of for several hours!
On our way back to our hotel, we spotted this memorial that commemorates the moment when Christopher Columbus asked Queen Isabella to travel to the New World.
After my little siesta, I took a little venture outside around 7:00 PM to grab a snack before we had our afternoon “Surprise!!” as was placed on our travel itenerary. To Ariana and I’s surprise, we found a parade traversing the streets with a religious object carried by children, quite similar to the huge versions used in Malaga. Apparently we left the hotel at just the right time to happen upon it!
As a less important side note, I was entertained by how “throw-back” the 7-Up cans here look. The design is much different and older-appearing than in the US!
As we returned to the hotel for our “surprise” meeting at 8:30, we were simply told to follow one of our ISA directors because we would be walking quite a distance to the surprise. We were quite curious at this point, although it was pretty walk to go along.
The Granada government building we walked by.
One of the many churches hosting weddings that day
A stream along the road
Just your average donkey tied along the road in a busy city
La Alhambra at sunset
Finally, after that long trek we determined that we were in the “Albayzin” part of the city, and as we stopped at one location we realized… our surprise was a flamenco show!! We had all been determined to see one and we had heard the ones in Granada were best, but we didn’t think we’d have the time to go to a show. As we sidled into the restaurant/flamenco place, we realized that the building was built into a cave. It was a neat location its own, and as we settled into our seats in front of the stage, we waited with great anticipation for the show to begin.
I’ve got a great many photos from the performance, which was probably one of the neatest things that I’ve ever watched. Unfortunately, videos were not allowed – only photos. Therefore, I can only describe to you how rapidly they could move their feet and clatter their heels on the floor, how gracefully they could twirl their dresses and move their arms, and how the rhythm of the music sang by the live singer and played by a guitarist while they clapped along was beyond words.
I narrowed it down to just a few pictures, so I’ll let you slide through them at your leisure.
This was our first group of dancers that performed
This lady was hands-down my favorite dancer, in case you couldn’t tell
After this guy completed his dance, all of the lady dancers shouted out to the audience in Spanish that he was single! Haha
We had an intermission halfway through the show around the one hour point, then another group of dancers and performers came on stage.
The show lasted about 2 hours in total, then we started on our long walk back home… where we ran into that parade again! It was now around 11 PM, so those children had been walking around the city with that massive religious object for about 4 hours! I guess you could say their parades are a lot longer than ours.
After that, we settled in for the night and prepared ourselves for a long 4 hours in La Alhambra the next day.
I’ve got over a hundred photos of La Alhambra for you, so I may just work on narrowing those down to a reasonable amount and do a post that is 80% photos/20% actual stories tomorrow for my day 2 in Granada. Until then, tonight I’ve still got a lot of homework to do and I also have a farewell dinner to attend with ISA. We were told to “Dress to impress!!”, so we’ll have to see what that’s for! 🙂
On a side note, I noticed today that I have 7 days left until my flight home and I’ll be leaving for Paris this Saturday. I can’t believe my month in Spain is almost over, but mark my words – I’ll be taking advantage of every last second that I can!
Tomorrow is San Juan, a huge national holiday where all the people of the coastal cities go to the beach for fiestas and concerts all day long. At night, they all build bonfires on the beach and throw in notes with pieces of the past and bad memories they want to move on from, setting them on fire and letting them burn. Sometimes, they’ll also jump over the bonfires – not sure if I’m athletically inclined enough for that one! Then, at midnight, they all run into the ocean to renew themselves from the past and continue on forward. I’ll hopefully have pictures from that and a blog post after my last about Granada, but we’ll see as we’ve been repeatedly warned to be careful about bringing valuables as it’s also a night that sees a lot of thieves.
Nos vemos,
Kenna
Where in the World is Kenna? 