Granada Tierra Soñada Por Mí

After an early breakfast at our hotel, we walked over to the Plaza Isabel la Católico to catch the C3 Bus that goes up to the Alhambra. I had booked our tickets about 3 months ago as the entry times to the Palace Nazaries book up fast. Here's my dad in front of the statue in the plaza of Columbus with the Queen:

The Alhambra bus is like a small shuttle, so it can navigate up the hill and roads easily. When we arrived, we picked up our 10 am entry tickets and slowly walked to the Palace which is on the other side of the complex. Before going into the Palace, we visited the Alcazaba, which is the fortress. Here's a collage below and a few candids:

You can see the Albayzin, the Muslim quarter across from the Alhambra behind us:

The complex and palace continued to expand over the years and is now the #1 tourist attraction in Spain. The palace is unbelievable and as my guidebook calls it, the high point of Moorish architecture in Europe. Here are photos from our visit, where I cropped out or tried to minimize the bright shirts of many tourists:

The ceilings are incredibly ornate and as on my last visit here in 2014, my mom said her neck hurt from looking up. Here are a few examples:

So I suggested selfies of the ceilings which I did in the collage above. We also did people selfies with the ceilings for fun too:

A view of the hills of the Albayzin, Muslim quarter, from the Alhambra:

I couldn't get enough of the various arches and courtyards:

After our palace visit, we walked towards Generalife which includes another palace and famous gardens. But on the way, we enjoyed beautiful plants and shrubbery as shown below:

Here's the start of the Generalife palace and gardens:

We finally started to exit which takes a bit of time. A photo of my dad who has been keeping up pretty well - he's been hiding a back brace underneath the green vest to keep up:

We returned to the city center on the C3 bus and popped into the Cathedral where we enjoyed the included audio tour in English or Korean!:

Behind the Cathedral is where they have markets and stores that feel like you're in Morocco. It isn't the original Arab market, but it gives a tourist a nice experience with the fragrances of various spices and herbs:

We lunched in Plaza Bib-Rambla at Laurel. Originally, I had wanted to take my parents to a fried fish place on Pescaderia where I went in 2014, but the family started to melt down from being hangry. I had a local beer, the Alhambra Especial, and we all shared a tapas tasting, fried fish, toast alpujarra, and a seafood paella. I forgot to take a few photos of the dishes, but I think you get the idea:

For the afternoon, I wanted to go up to Mirador San Nicholas, a famous lookout so we can see the Alhambra now from the Albayzin neighborhood. Unfortunately, Justin wasn't feeling well, so he headed to the hotel and my parents and I picked up the C1 bus conveniently in front of the Cathedral. We zig zagged up, saw a few backpackers getting arrested on the street, and observed the white washed walls. At the Plaza de San Nicholas, a block party was going on honoring the Saint of the neighborhood, but we were able to squeeze in a few photos and take in the enormity of the complex. In the bottom photo, the white house on the left is the Generalife as I tried to get the Alcazaba, Nazaries Palace, and Generalife - the whole Alhambra in the shot:

This is where Bill Clinton said he saw the most beautiful sunset in the world and a nice fellow tourist took a few shots and we tried a few selfies:

While waiting for the bus, I treated everyone to ice cream where you can even see the Alhambra in between the trees from the seating area:

We met Justin back at the hotel and napped and rested for a few hours. Our transport for our Flamenco show at Cueva La Rocio was supposed to pick us up at 8:30 pm, but we got a call they were stuck in traffic. So we hopped in a cab and headed up to Sacromonte, known as a Roma or gypsy neighborhood, and it is just north of the Albayzin. The flamenco culture is rooted with the Roma people who apparently live in caves. As such, as part of the package, you dine and watch a flamenco show in a traditional cueva or cave. I had researched many, but this is where apparently the Clintons watched a flamenco show and was rated very highly. 

Here's a collage of our meal which included some cheese and meat puffs, salmorejo, vegetable soup, cod, oxtail, pork, and flan:

Kudos to my brother who endured, like me, many flies. I guess it's one of those hassles of open air seating and I washed down 2 glassss of red wine to help ignore the nuisance. 

We then entered a cave for the 10 pm show and watched 1 hour of flamenco dancing, singing, and guitar playing. A nice New Yorker who was traveling alone sat next to me as we lined the cave's walls. A collage of the dancers below:

A photo of us waiting for our return transfer and a photo of the cave before the show:

The shuttle bus was filled with Italian tourists who were also getting dropped off at their hotel. On the way down, they stopped at San Nicolas so we could see a night view of the Alhambra, pictured below along with Granada city and the moon:

We finally all got dropped off after a few hotel stops. Indeed, we enjoyed our full day in Granada, as my mom hummed all day, and the flamenco singer sang soulfully, the famous song called "Granada". Translated, it starts out, "Granada, the land of my dreams..." 

Mama Kim may or may not have played repeatedly this song and the famous "Alhambra" guitar piece during our nap - I'm just glad my parents enjoyed our visit to this wonderful and special city!