10 days in Spain | Ultimate Bridesmaid

After our two days in Ronda, we jumped in our rental car and headed for Granada. We decided to drop off our rental car at the airport right away and just take a taxi into the city. We were planning to stay in Granada central for the next two days, so we figured it would be a waste of money to let our car just sit in a parking garage until we were ready to fly out. I was really surprised by how huge Granada was. It’s sprawling—not as big as Barcelona, but waaaaay bigger than Cordoba or Ronda. Our hotel was right in the historic district, placing us close to the Alhambra and other major attractions. We had also heard that Granada was a great city to eat in.

Our time in Granada was part of our 10-day honeymoon in Spain. You can read about the rest of our trip in the posts below.

Three days in Barcelona
Two days in Córdoba
Two days in Ronda
Two days in Granada
One day in Gavà

And here’s our Granada travel guide!

Our Hotel

We stayed at the Casa 1800 Granada in a room with an Alhambra view. We loved our room and the hotel itself, especially the complimentary 4pm afternoon tea they offered every day with sandwiches and snacks. The hotel is beautiful, with an open-air courtyard and stylish furnishings. The location is both a plus and a minus. It is a very short walk to the Alhambra, but this means it is smack dab in the middle of one of the most touristy sections of Granada. The shops and restaurants right around our hotel were not to our liking at all. We definitely had to venture into different neighborhoods for meals, especially since the hotel does not have a restaurant or bar, only breakfast and the daily tea service.

Museo Casa de los Tiros de Granada

Other than the Alhambra, this was my favorite stop in Granada. It’s a small museum with art, frescoes and carvings from the 17th-19th century. I like small museums because they aren’t overwhelming. You can enjoy a few pieces and not feel worn down by wandering through hallways for hours. The fresco work in particular was really striking. Plus, the entrance fee was quite small, so I think this museum is well worth your time.

The Alhambra

Number one on any itinerary in Granada must be the Alhambra. The Alhambra is not just one location, but rather a sprawling complex with many different gardens and palaces to visit. You can easily spend the whole day there. I recommend you buy your ticket online ahead of time to avoid waiting in line. Also, the most spectacular palace in the Alhambra, the Nasrid Palace, requires a timed entry ticket, so booking online will ensure you get the timed entry that you want.

After coming through the main entrance of the Alhambra, we headed for the Generalife, which consists of a leisure palace and the most beautiful gardens.

Next we visited the Alcazaba, a fortress that is the oldest part of the Alhambra. There are excellent views of the city of Granada from its walls.

Lastly, we stood in line for our entrance time to the Nasrid Palace. The palace is most definitely worth the wait. The carvings, mosaics and intricate decorations covering the walls, floors and ceilings are spectacular. I literally could not stop taking pictures.

Tapas

Granada is known for being one of the last cities to honor the age-old “free tapa with your drink” tradition. While I’ve been told you can find this practice in some restaurants throughout Spain, we only really experienced it in Granada. And the best place for this experience was Taberna La Tana. We showed up a few minutes before their doors opened because we had heard the place was tiny and filled up fast. This was good advice: The bartender and cooks rolled up to the restaurant at 8:40pm (ten minutes after they were supposed to open), took a few minutes to get settled and invited us in. The two of us and one other couple were the first to arrive and grabbed seats at the bar. Literally 15 minutes later the place was packed, and stayed that way all night. We also liked Bar Poe, which is run by an English ex-pat and had a very unique tapas menu.

There’s one last thing I have to tell you…

Unfortunately, Granada turned out to be my least favorite destination on this trip. While the Alhambra was fantastic and absolutely worth the visit and we had some of our favorite tapas in Spain here, we also experienced some of the most aggressive buskers and beggars I have ever encountered. Let me be clear—I live in New York City. I am a freaking expert at saying “no” to people approaching me on the street. On a day-to-day basis, four to six people will try to stop me on the sidewalk to ask for money for a sandwich or to tell me about how they lost their job and need to pay rent and buy diapers for their baby. On any given subway ride I’m likely to be approached by a mariachi band, kids selling candy for their basketball team or people shouting “showtime” and flipping around the subway cars. I am also often asked if I “have a minute for gay rights/to save the environment/to combat hunger” or if I “have heard of [insert name of start-up company here].” So I know how to say “no.” I have never, ever experienced the aggressiveness that I saw in Granada.

The most common ploy was for women to approach me on the street trying to give me a sprig of rosemary “for love.” These women would not accept “no.” They woul d try to shove the rosemary in my purse, grab my arm to stop me, get in my face and follow me for blocks insisting I take it. I assume if I did, they would have then asked for money with the same aggressiveness, or they were trying to pickpocket me. For some reason they would only come after me, not Andrew, so a few times he literally inserted himself between me and the women to try to get them to back off. This experience really soured me on Granada and shocked me as well since we hadn’t experienced anything like this anywhere else in Spain. I had a hard time giving Granada a chance after being accosted so frequently. This really only happened around the major tourist areas, like the Cathedral and outside the Alhambra, but it still left a nasty taste in my mouth.

Andrew and I took a two-part honeymoon: We traveled to Scotland right after our wedding in October of 2016 (you can read about our trip to Scotland here) and then saved up our vacation days to travel to Spain for 10 days in May of 2017, starting with three days in Barcelona, which you can read about here. Next up: two days in Cordoba!

Since we did so much, I’m going to write separate posts about each destination and I’ll link them all below. Here is our 10-day Spain itinerary:

Three days in Barcelona
Two days in Córdoba
Two days in Ronda
Two days in Granada
One day in Gavà

And now, on to our Córdoba travel guide! We took a short flight from Barcelona to Seville on Vueling, a very affordable regional Spanish air carrier, then rented a car at the Seville airport. Many people were surprised that we didn’t choose to stay in Seville, and I’d love to see the city someday, but I really wanted to spend more time in Córdoba, so we decided to skip Seville on this trip.

Tip: If you need an automatic car (like we do), make sure you book one in advance! The majority of cars in Europe are manual, so you’ll need to reserve the automatic to make sure you get one! I also recommend choosing a small compact car. While the highways in Spain were excellent with nice wide and well paved roads, the roads in cities can be pretty narrow and having a smaller car will help you navigate any tight squeezes with a bit more confidence.

Here’s our Cordoba travel guide.

Day 1

Our Hotel

We stayed at the Eurostars Palace in Cordoba. I’d give this hotel 4 stars out of 5. The hotel is located right outside of the old city and at the edge of a large city park. It is very conveniently located to all the major sights and the popular Victoria Market is just a few steps away. The hotel is very modern in design—it’s covered in this interesting steel structure with holes in it, which kind of obstructs the views, but also kind of looks cool. There is a nice little pool on the roof, and we also liked the rooftop bar. I’d say the one downside is that the hotel is a very popular event venue—we saw both a conference and a wedding while we were there. But I’d definitely recommend this hotel if you’re looking for a good central location with modern amenities.

Exploring Cordoba

Cordoba has so much charm and character and we really enjoyed just exploring the streets. It’s a small enough city to feel manageable and not overwhelming, but large enough to keep you busy for a long weekend. The streets are lined with colorful buildings and the window boxes are often bursting with flowers. Each square is paved with mosaics made of polished stone pebbles, and there’s a lovely promenade on the river. Really a charming place to visit and my second favorite city on our trip (favorite goes to Ronda, which I’ll write about next).

La Mezquita

One of the reasons I wanted to travel to Andalusia was to see the Moorish architecture that is so unique to that region. La Mezquita is a perfect example of that. The site was originally a mosque, but was transformed into a cathedral after the Christians conquered the region in the 13th century. The combination of the two types of architecture is really stunning. You enter a hall filled with red-and-white striped arches, and can find tombs decorated with Catholic icons and statues lining the walls. At the center of the Mezquita, the architecture dramatically shifts to the Renaissance with a soaring domed ceiling decorated in white and gold relief. In other areas of the mosque-turned-cathedral, you can find gold-leaf Islamic designs and tile work. It’s truly a stunning combination of two very different design styles.

Spanish-Asian Fusion and Oxtail Churros

By the time we got to Cordoba, Andrew and I were a little burned out on traditional Spanish tapas. I mean, I love Iberico ham and croquetas as much as the next person, but I can’t eat that every night. So we tried two modern Spanish restaurants during our stay in Cordoba and loved them both. The first, La Furgo, was a fusion restaurant that included Asian and French influences. We loved the dumplings, which were filled with traditional Japanese flavors but topped with Spanish ham and saffron threads. Our second night, we dined at Garum 2.1, a modern Spanish tapas restaurant. We had a ton of great dishes here, but our favorite was an oxtail churro with a bitter chocolate dipping sauce—yum! Both of these restaurants are near the river in a really nice area that’s less touristy than the streets right around La Mesquita and La Alcazar.

Day 2

Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos

The Alcazar is a medieval fortress that was one of the primary residences of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. It’s well known for its stunning formal gardens, including sculpted topiaries and fountains. We visited the Alcazar on a Sunday, when they unfortunately close the doors at 3pm…and we got there at like 2pm, so we didn’t have much time to explore more than just the gardens. Whoops!

Festival de los Patios

I specifically planned our visit to Cordoba to coincide with the Festival of the Patios. This festival is held in early May each year and residents around the city open their courtyards to the public and decorate them with gorgeous displays of flowers and plants. I’m a little bit of a voyeur when it comes to other people’s homes—I’m all about an open house—so being able to wander into people’s gardens around the city is like a perfect festival for me. You can grab a map to see which homes are participating, and there is also a pretty great website that alerts you to which patios are experiencing heavy traffic. Really helpful!

We decided to head to an area of the city away from the main tourist center to explore the Festival of the Patios, which was a great idea because we got to see more of the character of the city and the gardens we visited were a little less crowded.