The Bradburn Cavanagh Adventures

Sorry everyone for the late post, some technical difficulties and busy days have put me behind. So, looks like it’s finally my turn to take a stab at blogging. The family conceded to letting the history nerd have today as it was the big kahuna tour of Granada, the Alhambra. Our day started nice and early with our tour doing roll call at 10am which meant running downtown at 9:30am to the bus that takes us up the hill the Alhambra sits atop. We learned that Granada was under Islamic rule between the 8th and 15th century, the Alhambra being built during the 13th century Nasrid dynasty. The Alhambra had housed upwards of 2000 people, a self-contained palatine city, where the royal family, nobles, servants, and artisans all lived and worked. Our tour took us first through the neighboring Generalife, or summer estate of the Nasrid Kings. We were met with gorgeous gardens, pools, architecture, and views out over Granada, all of which would be a reoccurring theme today.

The Generalife was beautiful, but we had to make our way to the main attraction at some point. 1492 marked the year that the keys to the Alhambra were handed over to the Christians, weirdly enough the new owners decided NOT to tear everything down, but they did put their own Christian flare to the city. Several parts of the palaces had been partially remodeled by the Christians which led to very interesting dichotomy between the rounded and flowing Arabic red brick arches and carvings and the square rigid European wood and stone construction.

Alhambra Palace

Ok, apologies, enough with the history lesson. Our tour ended mid-afternoon and so we took a beautiful, but quite steep, path back down into the city where we grabbed some tasty shawarma and headed home.

We had already walked 4 to 5 hours today so when some of us voiced the idea of going back into town Dad finally put had to put his boot down and say no, he would do no such thing. It looks like the family would split up for the evening. The rest of us went down into town and stumbled upon a great little hidden plaza with classic Christmas market stalls, an actual ice rink, and to our surprise an amazing dance troupe called Afro Rua. I could never do them justice explaining the style of dance in words so I will let the videos speak for themselves.

Afro Rua 1 and Afro Rua 2

After they finished their dance we headed back to meet up with Dad and make our way to dinner at El Trillo, tucked way back into the Albaicin district. Making our way through the tight winding labyrinth of residential streets, we finally came upon the restaurant. The food was fantastic, filling up on marinated pork cheek and wild boar with risotto. Finally, with sore feet and food in our bellies we collapsed as soon as we returned to the house. An absolutely amazing day of sightseeing and food.

Granada. We love you. ❤