Today we woke up at 5:00am (which shouldn't have been too difficult since this is my normal wake up time during the school year) to head for an all-day tour to Granada. We walked to the pick up point and met our guide and the bus, ready for an adventure. The drive to Granada is about 3 hours and we stopped halfway through at a rest stop to get coffee and breakfast. One had never seen such happy people getting off the bus at the sight of fresh coffee. The typical breakfast in Spain is coffee with a toasted bread and jamón (iberian ham). M has really embraced the Spanish love for jamón, and orders it at every opportunities. For O and I, it is a little too salty so we opted for yogurt. After a short break we made our way back to the bus and continued on to Granada. Now that it was closer to 8:00am, our guide began to give a little history about Granada. Although she was nice, Baba and M could barely understand her VERY THICK accent. Maybe it is that I lived abroad and grew up hearing an accent daily, but I had no problem understanding her.
At Alhambra, the site uses its own guides to give tours of both the Alhambra and Jeneralife palaces; our new guide was Eduardo and he was terrific. O could not fit the headphones into her ear to hear our new guide so she ended up getting frustrated and decided instead to just walk as close to our guide as possible so she could hear every word. He actually appreciated having her next to him and used this as an opportunity to quiz her about history and make jokes with her.
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| Alhambra Palace -outside tower of arms |
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| Palace of Lions - Representing 12 Tribes of Israel |
After visiting the main palace of Alhambra we walked up to the Jeneralife Palace, the summer palace with some of the most beautiful gardens. Over 100 different types of herbs grow at this palace as well as tens of flowers. The grounds have over 400 people working to maintain its beauty and it has taken over 70 years for the garden to be in its current state.
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| Gardens of Jeneralife |
After our visit, we headed to Alhambra we got back on the bus with our first tour guide and headed to the neighborhood of Albaicín. By this point it was almost 100 degrees so the attention span of M & O during our walking tour was minimal, but we did manage to get them to pose for one more picture with Alhambra in the background.
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| Picture from Albaicín |
It was a great day and the fact that we could all sleep on the bus ride home instead of needing to stay awake to drive was the cherry on top.
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