@font-face { font-family: “Cambria”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

Last weekend, when my friend Ana’s travelling companion bailed on her at the last minute, I decided to book a spur of the moment trip to Granada for the weekend. Granada is a city in the southern part of Spain, located in the region of Andalucia. It is known for it’s strong Arabic influence, the Alhambra, and tapas.

 Ana and I arrived early Friday morning, and right away we met up with her friend Katie, who is studying there this semester, and she told us what to do for the day. After a quick breakfast, Katie led us on a tour of the main parts of the city, showing us some beautiful views of the mountainsides and even a great little marketplace area with a tea and spice market. The tea market must have had over 150 different types of fresh teas!

After leaving Kaite, Ana and I made our way up to the Alhambra, an enormous complex built by the Moors in the 14^th century, that served as a fortress and a palace for various centuries. It is made up of three large sections: the Alcazaba, which was the fortress area, the Generalife, which was the beautiful garden area, and the Palacios Nazar�es, which was the area that the palaces were located in. Famous historical figures have passed through the Alhambra, including Christopher Columbus and Washington Irving. At the topmost tower of the Alcazaba, I saw the most breathtaking view of the city below me, all the way out to the snowcapped Sierra Nevada Mountains.

After the Alhambra, we met up with Katie and her friends, and headed up to a plaza atop another mountain and looked out on the lit up city at night.

For dinner, people living in Granada do not eat a large meal. Instead, they eat what are called tapas, which are small portions that are similar to appetizers. People go out at night to get drinks with friends and tapas come complimentary with the drinks. This makes for an inexpensive and fun way to hang out with friends and end one’s day.

After tapas and drinks, Ana, Katie and I decided to go to a flamenco show. Flamenco is a genre of music and dance and is an important part of Andalusian tradition. This particular show was in a small cave that was beautifully decorated with photos of flamenco dancers and filled with a circle of chairs for the audience. There was a musician playing guitar accompanied by a woman singing, and the dancers danced on a metal stage type of thing on the floor in the middle of the circle. The singing was extremely powerful, and the dancing was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, we were not permitted to take photos or videos of the show, so to get an idea of what it was like, please click the following link to see a video of another performance on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqxJMCQxb_Q

On Saturday, Ana and I went to another city in Spain called Sevilla for the day. However, it was so beautiful and we saw so much that it deserves its own blog post instead of being included in this one.

On Sunday, we spent the day roaming the streets of Granada with Katie and another one of Ana’s friends named Anne. We had some delicious churros with chocolate, a sweet delicacy that is common for breakfast in southern Spain, and some of the best tea that I have ever had. Finally, we left Granada on Sunday night to return to Barcelona.

I really enjoyed my trip to Granada. After going, I can’t believe that I almost missed the opportunity. When Ana asked me if I wanted to go with her, I realized that it seemed blasphemous for me to be studying in Spain and not travel to see other parts of the country. I liked that the city was smaller than Barcelona, which made it seem more “homey” to me. This is a place that I definitely want to go back to visit again, and I would absolutely recommend this trip to anyone and everyone.

Location: Granada, Spain