And here we go again

I guess I should tell you “briefly” about the rest of the travels with my parents. We so far you´ve been updated on that first weekend. From there my parents stayed an extra day in Toledo and I headed back to Lucena to work. 2 days later we were back to traveling…

First stop- Granada- my favorite city in ALL of Spain. Usually when I visit there´s a lot of crazy nights that end at 5am but this time it was a little different since we were waking up at 8am every day! On this trip we went to a ton of places and this time I even got to see the Alhambra for the first time! Amazing! 

From this I've learned you are small, then big, stay big, then die...very informative

Let me get this story in order though...after catching a 8am bus from Lucena, we arrived in Granada and headed straight to the hotel to drop our luggage off…fast forward a little bit and we met up with my Spanish brother, Carlos, who kindly brainstormed some ideas for us to do with our two days there. The first attraction to see was the Park of Sciences. That place is actually super fun, but probably better on a day that’s not pouring down rain. After we brushed up on our knowledge of how the planet works, the human body and the cycle of life (where we also learned how babies are made-including a video of a baby birth), butterflies species and famous towers, we then headed back into town.

Who's who???

 

We met back up with Carlos and decided to give a little tour of the Albaicín. Carlos and I had actually been on a tour about the water systems in Granada and its history so we attempted to give my parents a re-enactment. Next time I´m charging haha. We made our way up to the look-out point called the “Mirador de San Nicolas” where you can see a beautiful view of the Alhambra. It’s absolutely beautiful to see, especially at night. I´ve already been there a few times myself and love it every time I go. After admiring the beautiful view we headed down to a nearby restaurant and put in reservations for dinner and flamenco dancing that night. We had some time to kill so we did some more wandering over the “cave neighborhood,” which is also apparently considered dangerous although I´ve never had any problem. Anyhow we just strolled through the area and then headed back up to watch some flamenco dancing and music. I think we went on a great night because there with us was a bachlorette party all dressed up…and then even took part in the show. We got a few pics but they don´t really do the show much justice. After dinner we were exhausted and headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest!

The next morning started early…again. We had to get to the Alhambra by 9:30am. We spent a decent chunk of the day there, strolling around the grounds and taking lots of pics of the random cats that have now claimed the place as their stomping grounds. The Alhambra is beautiful and full of rich history which we learned about thanks to Carlos. 

By about 2pm we were hungry so we headed out to grab some lunch. We had been getting used to eating HUGE lunches and were all feeling a bit heavy from that so we headed to a famous tapas bar right at the bottom of the hill from the Alhambra. The food there is amazing I have to say…one reason there is NEVER room to sit (unless you´re lucky like us).After a few beers we headed up to a tea shop with wonderful views. 

EVERYTIME I go to Granada I always visit this place so I had to keep the tradition going. Getting to the place is a little difficult because it’s up some serious hills, BUT on the upside- we burned off a few calories! We, luckily, had great timing and scored a table with the best view. There we all enjoyed some tea and crepes while looking out over the entire Albaicín…beautiful. Walking back down from the tea shop we stopped into a few Moorish style markets as well. We followed that up with a stop by the…

CATHEDRAL! We entered into both the cathedral and also where Fernando and Isabella were buried. All incredible, I have to also mention that I think Granada has one of the best cathedrals in Spain…maybe that’s influenced by the fact that we found a sponge bob balloon floating at the top of the ceiling though…hmmm. Either way- it’s well worth a visit.

Can you find the Sponge Bob?

 After all that activity though we were exhausted and headed back for a much needed siesta. About an hour later we were up and moving again…we met up with Carlos…for tapas! We headed over to a cute plaza area with lots of tapas bars and stopped in the one with the most people- almost always the best way to choose a restaurant here. Yet again, Granada didn´t fail to delight us with its tapas. We only stayed out for a little bit that night because the next morning we had to wake up extra early…once AGAIN. We said our goodbye´s to Carlos and headed back…the next morning we were headed to Ronda.

If you´re not familiar it, Ronda is a small tradition white hill town of Spain but it is, in most people´s opinions, very different from other typical hill towns. It´s located about an hour and a half west of Malaga (and just an hour north of Marbella). The town is mostly known for their deep gorge and the bridge across it. Just like any other small tourist town they have many other attractions as well which include the bullring, outlook points from steep drop offs, the museum…and I´m sure people could tell you about 20 other things to see there as well. The day that we went it happened to be kinda a gross day so it was really foggy there. 

This, at first, clouded our views but after the fog began to clear it made for some beautiful photos. The best part I found was the path that went along the cliff. It was just a really long lookout point and it was gorgeous. We only spent a day there so we just did a few things there like cross the bridge, visit the cathedral and museum and walk by the bullring (but its pricey so we didn´t go inside). After all that we had some lunch and headed back to the train station. From there we caught a train to Cordoba and from there grabbed the bus to Lucena…just to have a nights rest at home.

The next morning we headed back up to Cordoba. Luckily it was really nice out so we didn´t have to hide under our ONE umbrella all day long like in Ronda. I´ve been to Cordoba a few times before although most of my time as you should remember was spent at the police station trying to get my ID. I have seen a few important things so I was able to be a half-helpful tour guide to my parents. We wandered around while I showed my parents different areas of the city, stopped in a few cute shops, and then made our way to the Mezquita. Maybe I´ve just seen too many photos of the Mezquita and just had too many people talk it up but when we first walked in I was not very excited. I mean it was just like the pictures, but it was just that, it had nothing new…UNTIL we walked a little further inside. 

The most amazing thing for me was how the Catholics had transformed this mosque into a cathedral. Inside the Moorish arches they had placed Christian statues and paintings. You could look to the left and see the arches from the mosque and look slightly to your right and see the huge monument the Christians had places in the dead center of the building. It kind of gives you some insight into exactly how things had gone down when they took over…

Seeing the old Muslim architecture was just remarkable and I can see why the Catholics didn’t want to destroy such beauty. Even parts like the stained glass were SO distinct from the Christian style and it was just stunning. Besides the amazing architecture and design of the building one of my other favorite parts to the visit was taking silly pictures with my dad…because, I mean, what else would you do when visiting historical and religious landmarks?

After our visit we made our way across the famous bridge and then back across on a not famous bridge for some lunch. The place we stopped by was incredibly good and just a few blocks away from the Mezquita. I’ll make sure I get pic of it up in my album so yall can go eat there the next time you drop by Cordoba ;)

how cute!

Beyond seeing the main attraction in Cordoba we didn’t see too much else, although I did give my parents a full tour of the Corte Ingles (basically a Macy’s but with literally everything…food, gardening supplies, school supplies, etc.). We headed back that night and finally were able to fully rest and have a peaceful night. The only thing we had to do the next day was get my dad packed (because he was leaving in 2 days) and have lunch with Teresa and Rafa (one of my replacement parents here in Spain).

By the way, something I just wanted to add. When writing this post Word kept editing some of my American English words into British English, like "favorite" to "favourite," so if you see that in my writing it's because Word has decided that I don't speak (or write) proper English...