Granada is most famous for the Alhambra. A massive palincial city built by the Arabs around the 13th century and added to over the next few hundred years by the Christians. It is the most visited attraction in Spain and is absolutely amazing. I had heard of the Alhambra before even starting this trip, though I didn't actually really know what it was or even where it was. So when I heard it was in Granada that just cemented my "plan" to go there.

I got to Granada on Thursday night and went out to a bar with Reyna. It was one she had been to before which did alright tapas so that we didn't need to buy dinner. On Friday I didn't really do all that much at all. I was still spending quite a bit of time getting my laptop all updated and everything installed on it. Slow hostel internet made that a slow process. But I walked around a bit, had some more tapas.

On Saturday I went with Reyna to Sierra Nevada. It's the tallest mountain range in Spain and only about an hour away from Grenada. We got there in the afternoon, wandered around a bit, found our hotel and booked in and then went and got dinner. The plan was to sort out our ski gear this afternoon so we could spend the whole next day skiing Unfortunately the weather was looking pretty bad and it was snowing heavily. The people there said to wait in the morning to see what it was like first. Turns out that was a good tip because the weather was atrocious the next day. Still snowing heavily and the visibility up the mountain was pretty much zilch. So we couldn't ski. In the end we wandered around for a while trying to figure out when the next bus back to Granada was or even if they were going to be running. When we got back to Granada we went to the Cathedral as it was free entry on Sundays and then went and got churros with hot chocolate. Delicious. Shame about a bit of a wasted weekend though. I was really looking forward to a bit more skiing.

I spent a pretty lazy Monday. Bit of a sleep in. But I did get out and walk up to Albaicin. This is the old Muslim area of Granada. All these old Arab style houses going up the hill. It's all a UNESCO area which is actually causing problems for the people living there because of restrictions and such, But it's a beautiful area. And there are several lookouts up there which give a great view of the Alhambra.

On Tuesday I got up bright and early to do the free walking tour. Turned out though that only me and one other girl from South Korea showed up, so the tour didn't run. So instead we went up to the Alhambra together. This place was amazing and huge. I think we were walking around for something like 4 hours. So many palaces and towers and other awesome stuff to see. Amazing Muslim architecture everywhere too. Definitely one of the coolest places I've been. It may top the fortress in Salzburg too in terms of being the coolest looking castle/fortress the way it stands atop the hill overlooking the town.

Afterwards we decided to walk up in the Albaicin district. We went to the St Nicolas lookout which is apparently the best place in the city to see the Alhambra from. Somehow I had missed this particular one the other day when I had walked around up there. It definitely did give a great view of it. A lot of people also go up there to watch the sunset. It was a bit too cloudy to see the sun, but we stayed up there until it got darker anyway to see the city and more importantly the Alhambra lit up.

The next day we both gave the walking tour a shot again. This time there were 4 of us which still wasn't enough, but the guide felt bad about cancelling again so he said he would just do a bit of a shorter one. In the end he actually got a bit carried away and took us on a different route than he would normally take and we ended up seeing more and having a longer tour than normal. So that was well worth it. He even took us up a bit of the way to the gypsy caves/houses which was actually part of a separate tour he did the next day.

So that was pretty much it for Granada. Was a great little town with quite a bit to see and do. But it was time to move on. So I caught a bus to Seville. In hindsight perhaps I should have stopped by Cordoba first, but I might do that as a day trip from Seville.