Granada is quirky, artistic, multicultural, varied and belly-filling.
Granada from Albayzin.
Granada is a city with a youthful spirit and an artistic soul. The streets are paved with mosaic styled stones and public spaces feature beautiful art and statues. Spending time here means sitting outside at bars and cafes drinking sangria and eating tapas with the seemingly endless waves of students and young backpacker types. The city has much to offer in a very small space. It is also heavily influenced by Middle Eastern and North African culture. Some of the streets are wall to wall Shawarma shops (their awesome and superior version of a kebab), Middle Eastern food and tea shops. The streets smell of the hashish and are filled with students smoking, drinking tea and laughing loudly. Walk for a couple of minutes and then you’ll hit a spacious and leafy public park. Walk another few and you’ll be amongst old villas and churches. Walk up the hill and you’ll find yourself in the Muslim quarter, Albayzine, which seems to have been taken over by folks with a penchant for dreadlocks and fisherman pants. All with snow-capped mountains in the distance and the imposing Alhambra on the hill above. It is a beautiful city.
El Campo del Príncipe.
My favourite facet of the artistic side of the city are the buildings that are covered in amazing street artworks, not just horrible tags. We spent an afternoon following the trail of a graffiti artist known as “Sex”, Raul Ruiz. His life-like human faces and animals decorate many walls of the city. I particularly liked his portrait of The Clash’s Joe Strummer that sits on a wall next to ‘Placeta Joe Strummer’. Apparently when Joe had enough of the UK, he and his Spanish lady-friend would hang out in this area of Granada. The square is a tribute to him, as is Sex’s portrait.
Joe Strummer by ‘Sex’
It is also a place of tradition. I have quite a bad habit of booking my holiday only to find myself in the middle of a significant religious or cultural festivals- my last trip to Thailand was in the middle of Songkran weekend, so I got soaked and had a face full of chalk for my trouble. Needless to say it was amazing fun. In Granada it is holy week, or as it is known to the locals, Semana Santa, this week. Starting with Palm Sunday parades of hooded Hermadads (brothers) taking to the streets in full Medieval church regalia walking from their church to the cathedral carrying enormous statues, mostly of Jesus and The Virgin Mary, and holy relics. They are joined by children, marching bands playing somber tunes and women in traditional Spanish costumes carrying gigantic candles. It seemed the whole town was out for the parades and there were people everywhere; they were lined up 5 deep for hundreds of meters. I thought the crowd would thin when I found out it wasn’t a one night thing, but it seems people are out for the event every night of the week. At one point we were on our way back to the hostel when we found ourselves completely stuck on street corner and unable to move as men in green pointy hats carried a massive statue of The Madonna, covered in candles and flowers. But that is unsurprising, as writer Miguel de Unamuno wrote “Here in Spain we are all Catholics, even the Athiests”. It was an interesting experience to be amonsgst the locals for a festival that is not dominated by outsiders, but, honestly it wasn’t really my cup of tea. Not enough water fights.
Semana Santa
We’ve spent some time indulging in the city’s night-life. In Granada most bars will give you tapas with every drink, so a little snack to go with your beer or Tinto de Verano (red wine and lemonade on ice). The food isn’t amazing, but it has satisfied our hunger pangs while waiting to have the traditional late Spanish dinner at about 10pm. Another practice here I haven’t seen before is the bartender giving you a free drink after you’ve had a few rounds in their bar. We went to a bar called ‘Gotham’, a Batman-themed dive with a lively foosball (known as futbolín) table and 90s punk pumping out the speakers. After a couple of rounds the bar tender wandered over with shot glasses and poured 3 shots, 2 for us and one for him, he said something in Spanish, we nodded, we said something in English, he nodded; we all walked away with no idea what went on. He did it again later with a cocktail with absinthe for us. Needless to say, we nursed some sore heads in the morning. No green fairies though.
The Alhambra.
Much to my disappointment, the area and Spain’s top tourist attraction The Alhambra is sold out for a month. Of course we didn’t stumble across this bit of information until we went to buy tickets, this was about the same time we realised every man and his dog was in town for Semana Santa. No ticket means we missed seeing the inside Alcazilos (the fort), Nasrid (the palace) and Generalife (the gardens). At first I was really annoyed by this, how could we come all the way here and not see it? It seemed mad. Until, that was, we started to explore other areas of the Alhambra hill. We visited a gorgeous vineyard and gardens of Carmen de los Martires, which featured great views of the Alhambra, the city and those snow capped mountains and we were given a tour of painter José María Rodríguez-Acosta‘s studio he built that features an extensive sculpture garden, underground caves and a collection of artworks and archaeological artifacts. I think I’m learning valuable lessons about the fact that you can’t do everything, but you’ve got to make the stuff you do worthwhile. I loved what we have seen and given we only had 3 days here we have filled the time well.
Rodríguez-Acosta Foundation house.
I have really enjoyed how varied Granada has been. Traditional but artistic, European but Middle Eastern; it is a complex city and thoroughly enjoyable. Even without setting foot in the Alhambra.
Ali's adventure 