Granada and a magical spanish wedding!

With Benny and Karen inviting me to their wedding in Spain during June, it was a great opportunity to make the most of spending a few days in the sunshine exploring the nearby town of Granada.

Granada and the Alhambra Palace

I have always heard wonderful things about Granada, and it exceeded my expectations in every way! I arrived around 7pm and decided to just drop my bags and head out into the lingering afternoon heat, exploring all the little streets. A map is not in any way necessary and I enjoyed getting lost down the tiny cobbled streets, discovering little tapas bars and gelato bars at every turn. It was this first night that I also stumbled across an amazing flamenco performance taking place in a little courtyard. I quickly joined the crowd and was mesmerized by the talent of the musicians and singers, all dressed up in immaculate outfits and singing so very passionately, with plenty of support by the crowd who were loving every minute of it. My favourite part was when the flamenco group started sculling wine out of this old pouch that they passed around to all the group, who each in turn took their due and passed it on again! It is obviously just a part of the performance though, as there was no surprise shown from the crowd, and the performance increased in passion following each swig of the wine bottle!

The highlight of my time in Granada though was definitely visiting the Alhambra Palace (literally 'The Red Fortress'), once the residence and court of the Muslim rulers of Granada, and is still perfectly preserved and sits majestically on the terrace overlooking the city of Granada. The Palace was completed in the middle of the 14th century and reflects the amazing skils and creativeness of the Muslim craftsmen of that time. I enjoyed taking my time exploring through all the rooms of the palace court. There are quite a lot of tourists there, however as I went in towards the end of my group, for a good hour I had a lot of the rooms to myself which was really peaceful and gave me plenty of time to play with the settings on my new camera! A big part of the moorish architecture is around water, and there were magnificant long pools of water, with fountains and sprays going in all directions which was a key part of the designs. In the heat of the midday sun, it really cooled the palace down and I felt like I was in an airconditioned room in most of the palace rooms, despite the 40 degree heat outside! After exploring the main parts of the castle, I headed off the the surrounding gardens which are brilliant in their own right; so many different plants and the colours that were created in the garden were just beautiful, along with the little courts and pools throughout. All in all, I felt like I could have gone back to the Alhambra and done it all again the next day!

I decided to complete my 'Alhambra Day' by heading to one of the vantage points to watch the glowing red fortress as the sun set (at around 9.30pm!), of course with the obligatory glass of vino in hand. The view was amazing, as the backdrop was the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada, whilst down in Granada the heat of the day was only just beginning to subside.

I definitely got into 'spanish time' mode whilst I was there, only going out for dinner at around 10.30/11 pm and having a little siesta in the heat of the day around 3/4pm... I think I could DEFINITELY get used to that lifestyle! So I headed out that night for Tapas and Vino. Granada is famous for serving tapas free at most little bars, so every time you order a drink, you get a free tapas with it... so the more you drink, the more tapas you get. It's a great way to have a casual bite to eat in the bar, and also very economical with a glass of wine not costing more than 2 euro, I was in heaven! The other great cuisine available in Granada was north african, and I enjoyed having a great lamb tagine one night, complete with all the appropriate decor.. so plenty of cushions, mirrors, jewels etc... the only downside was that there was no alcohol! I also headed out for a great night of salsa whilst I was in Granada, although unlike in London where salsa kicks off around 10pm ... in Granada, noone was out until 1am at the earliest, and the club didn't really pick up until around 3am!

Benny and Karen's Wedding
The main reason for being in Spain was Benny and Karen's wedding, which they had at an amazing villa just outside a little village called La Joya, set in the middle of the mountainous countryside. I was picked up at the train station in style, with Benny wizzing in his convertible to pick me up... and we winded our way through the mountains to arrive at 'Fuente Del Sol', which definitely lived up to its name of 'Source of Sun' http://www.hotelfuentedelsol.com/. It was such a relaxing environment, and we all had from Friday to Monday at the villa, with the wedding being on Saturday night, so it was lovely to get to spend quality time with Benny, Karen and all the guests at the wedding, meaning everyone was very chilled out the entire time. The first night was a BBQ by the poolside and great to meet the new faces and catch up with those I hadn't seen for a while. Saturday night was the wedding itself and Sunday night was a massive (and I mean massive!) paella dinner in the village of La Joya.

As you can see, it was quite a tough few days, mornings were spent having a late breakfast, then usually heading to the pool to spend some quality time on the deck chairs... and then at some point in the afternoon it would become 'beer o'clock' and the beers would come out. We kept track of time with the movement of the local goat herd! At the same time in the morning and afternoon hundreds of little bleating goats would move past the villa and around the surrounding hillsides. So, whilst we were mostly in relaxation mode, so that we didn't all feel completely lazy for the few days, Ian and Dom set the standard in terms of heading out for a run amongst the (very steep) hills around the village and villa. Benny and I headed out for a run the morning of the wedding, and going at 11am in the burning heat probably wasn't the wisest idea, and the massive hill back up to the villa was great to run down, but not so fun to run back up! Needless to say we arrived back very red-faced, although given that was the only exertion I was under for the day, I quickly brought the heart rate back down lazing by the pool!

Weatherwise, the day of the wedding was pretty consistent with the rest of weekend, beautiful blue sky, sunshine and an intense amount of heat! However as the ceremony wasn't until late in the afternoon, the heat was nicely subsiding as we all took our places on the grassy deck awaiting Karen's appearance down old stone staircase. The photos themselves show how stunning Kaz looked and it was such a fun wedding. They had a beautiful ceremony, promptly followed by champagne all round and then we moved upstairs for a lovely dinner under the stars! The night flew by, and I was wondering why everyone had disappeared off to bed when my watch was only showing 1.30am.. however I realised my watch had stopped and infact it was approaching 4am... the sign of a great night hey!

On Monday we all sadly waved the white villa goodbye and headed back to the real world!

That's the end of this spanish adventure, however I'll try to catch up on the last couple of months soon!

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