Lazy Day in Granada

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That point in the trip had come, it simply was not possible to get up, have breakfast and hit our jam-packed day. Knowing that day would happen, it always does, we specifically designed a day about halfway through the trip that we would not mind if we did little or nothing on the itinerary.

The original plan was close in sightseeing, including the cathedral, (Isabella and Fernando are buried there), lunch at the central market, then the bus up to the top of the Albaicin neighborhood with a walk down stopping at several sites along the way.

Option 2 was lunch at the market, then the bus to the top with the walk down. We ended up with the third option, lunch at the market, a free museum and a bit of gift shopping. Then back to the hotel to rest. Lunch was the highlight of this part of our day.

Most of the market was devoted to food stalls with table service. There were few fish & meat stands, but it looked as if most of the market was closed on a Thursday. There was a lot to choose from so we picked the one that looked the busiest (it turned out it was not the cleanest, health standards are a bit different here and I will not go in to detail, but if we seen before entering what we saw while we were already eating, we may have chosen to go elsewhere.)

That all being said, the food was decent. When you order a drink it comes with a tapa of their choosing, dangerous if you have allergies, but there choice was find really nice, sliced pork in a nice garlic paprika sauce. This came with our Sangrias. We then ordered the mean and cheese tray; it was huge and came with enough pan con tomate to feed four. We also got a meat paella for two. It took the appropriate amount of time to cook, so it was definitely authentic. Was much more traditional as there was clearly saffron but did not really appear to be a sofrito and the rice was a bit al dente. Jerry said it was ok, but he is just spoiled by mine. It did need more garlic, well any garlic, and some vegetables. It was better than what I had in Barcelona.

After lunch we did a quick free museum featuring Jose Guerrero and Spanish modern artist. It took all of 15 minutes. Then it was just a stroll through the markets and back to the hotel. We did make a quick stop at a Pharmacia to get some throat lozenges for Jerry to ward off the potential illness.

It was a very lazy day, since we slept through breakfast and didn’t head out until about 2. Now just in the room relaxing dinner under the bull ring tonight.

El Coso

The last time we were in Granada was 16 years ago as part of our Honeymoon trip around Spain. We had very fond memories of the city and knew that someday we would be back again. Sixteen years later, here we are, and sometimes memories are better than reality. You have an image in your mind of this place you loved and often when you revisit years later, it of course is not the same. Time marches on, restaurants open and close and change is inevitable. Granada still has its history, its charming pedestrian streets, but the feel is somehow different, not as laissez-fare (of course that is a French word) and more fast pace. I guess just another example of the other side of the pond and our negative impact on the rest of the world.

The point of that prologue to dinner was that sometimes a memory should be left as a memory. It isn’t that dinner wasn’t good, because it was, but it wasn’t the wonderful memory of 16 years ago.

The original plan was to take the tram to dinner, which was under the bull ring. Things as they are, that is to say “getting older” we took a taxi instead. On the way there I did remember certain streets that we walked down all those years ago, Jerry did not. In our minds we walked to the restaurant the last time, but I am not sure why we would have walked for 30 minutes to go to dinner, even if we were much younger and no body aches. Just a quick mention, we have left English Speaking Spain behind us in Catalonia, here fewer people speak English outside hotels. With the exception of lunch today, every restaurant has been 100% Spanish and taxi drivers are definitely all Spanish speaking. I am trying to speak as much Spanish as possible, but it takes me time to think of the words and get the right pronunciation and verb tense, everyone gets impatient, but I am trying.

Back to dinner. Given our late and large lunch we went all tapas for dinner. We started with Salmorejo (otherwise known as gazpacho) and it was we had been waiting for, classic Spanish gazpacho (dish of the day). From there (put your coffee down Shari) Carpacio de vaca vieja (old cow carpaccio), the presentation alone was mouthwatering. Finally, we ended with a round of all of their croquetas, rabo toro, cod and Jamon. (rabo toro is oxtail) one of each kind for each of us. They were all very good, the Jamon was outstanding. The wine was a wonderful bottle of Rioja Reserva.

It was a nice dinner to end a pretty non-eventful dinner. It took us a bit to get a taxi back to the hotel, but after about 10 minutes we managed to wave one down. We have a very early day (it is that day already) so we went directly to bed when we got back to the hotel.

Tomorrow the Alhambra.

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Photos

Gazpacho
Dish of the Day

Jamon
at the Market

Paella
Close but not yet perfect

Comments

[Sharon Hughson]

Sounds Perfect
This sounded like the perfect vacation day to me. I hope you got the rest you needed to go full-out for the next ten days.