Spain: Granada

Granada Spain is one of the coolest places that I’ve ever had the chance to visit. I was first here more than 20 years ago with my mom and I was really keen to work another visit into this trip.

We came primarily to visit the incredible Alhambra Palace, an 1100+ year old complex that was fortress and palace under Moorish rule and became the heart of Ferdinand and Isabella’s empire following the Spanish Reconquista.

We took a tour of the expansive grounds, which includes multiple palaces, fortress towers, and sprawling gardens. This was a little bit of a stretch with the kids in tow, but they were really patient and hung in there for 3+ hours of walking around. It’s possible that they’ve realized they are stuck with us…and have given up their protests!

We also spent an afternoon wandering the nearby Albaicin neighborhood, whose narrow winding streets date back to the 1300’s. From this hillside you can spy the palace complex on the neighboring hill.

As we made our way down the hillside, the streets take on the feeling of an Arab souq, with small shops and tea stalls along winding little roads. We stopped for a tea break in a funky little shop full of study abroad kids smoking from hookahs and smooching in dimly lit corners. The charm of it was lost on the kids whose patience had finally run out and we made a quick exit back to the hotel.

Part of the appeal of our visit to Granada was the chance to stay at the Parador San Francisco. This is a former convent, turned hotel, built inside the grounds of the palace complex. This means that after everything closes and most tourists have gone for the night, the palace exterior is yours to explore. It is quiet, a little bit eerie, and incredibly beautiful to take a sunset or sunrise walk around the grounds. We did both.

Another part of the appeal of the visit was to hang around with the Alhambra cats that live on the grounds. When I was here 20 years ago, I remember there being dozens of cats and finding them in all the palace nooks and crannies. They would sit with you on benches and beg for bits of your ham sandwich. They added a vibrance and playfulness to the otherwise vacant spaces.

Norah, who loves animals, was excited about hanging around the Alhambra cats. I had pitched it to her as a selling point of Granada. However, we realized on this visit that they have taken an active approach to managing the cat colony. This means that they are now feeding and providing veterinary care for the cats – which is great for the cats. But, this also means that they are managing the number of cats living there, through a spay/neuter and also microchip program, so there were many, many fewer cats than I remember from my last visit. Plus, the cats that remain no longer need to be social, so they were much harder to interact with. Overall, probably a good thing – but, it meant I couldn’t distract Norah from the length of our tour by having her spot cats everywhere.

We spent Christmas Eve in Granada, eating a fairly elaborate dinner at our hotel and then crashing out with Roblox (a game the kids are crazy about) and our books. On Christmas Day, we made our way back to Seville where we wrapped up our time in Spain.