Granada, Spain 11/25 - 11/28

I decided to tour the Andalucian region of Spain, which is nice for many reasons, one being that you do not kill a whole day on a bus or train going from place to place.  Granada is unlike any place that I have been to or seen, it has everything from an elaborate palace, to people living in caves, to free tapas when you buy a beer and all of this is surrounded by the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  

One good thing about traveling in the off season is avoiding the lines.  There is usually a day or two wait to get tickets to the Alhambra, an amazing palace and the most visited monument in Spain, but I got my ticket by walking right up to the ticket booth.  Spending four hours in this palace does not take much effort at all.  There is no gold leaf or painted murals, everything in here was carved out of stone, pretty unbelievable.  It is easily one of the most fascinating buildings I have seen in Europe.

 Another unbelievable site is taking a walk into the Sacramonte area of the city, which is a community of people living in caves. 

 You have everything from fully furnished caves just like modern houses to people living in caves just like cavemen.  On top of all this on your way back to the center of town in the evening time you can walk into almost any bar, order a drink for around 1-2 euros and get a free plate of any variety of tapas (small plate of food) that bar is offering that day, its great!  Very economical as well.  Granada was a great!

I tried to post a variety of pictures.  The first one on the right is taken from Alhambra around sunset looking over the city into the Sierra Nevada's.  The first one on the left is of one of the many caves in Sacramonte, note the solar panels on the roof and dog.  There are stray dogs running rampant all over, very friendly though.  The night shot is looking at Alhambra from San Nicholas church.   The bottom left is an example of what inside Alhambra is like, all carved out of stone.  The bottom right picture is taken around sunset.  You can see the snow capped mountain if you look closely, the snow is very new.