Spain, Day Four--Granada, Alhambra

At this point in my story, I need to talk about the TripIt app. A man in our ward was talking about the app in a talk of his (and no, he doesn't work for the company, or anything), so I had a look.  I discovered that there's another app (not related) that seemed to be even better, but when I compare $29/per person/per month for that app, versus FREE on TripIt, I went with TripIt.  It was a mental life-saver for me.  Everybody had access to the daily plans and addresses and times and locations, so there were no questions for me asking me details of the day.  I will use it every time from now on when I'm planning vacations with multiple people.  In fact, writing this blog, I am looking back at the app to remind myself of what we did.

Because of Trevor's celiac disease, Hannah was very mindful and very helpful when planning the trip in regards to food.  I don't know if it's an EU regulation, but wow, Europe is so forward-living in regards to gluten-free food.  We were thrilled (and a bit skeptical) that we found entire restaurants gluten free in Granada.  Would the food taste any good?  We were gonna find out our first day in Grenada.

We headed to a brunch place called Gigi.  Because there is limited parking in Granada, and because of our cars were nestled in a parking garage, and because our apartment was fairly central, we set out walking to the restaurant (again, everyone can see where it is and figure out what time they needed to leave).  When we showed up, it was just a small counter on the ground floor, but they showed us to the top floor with a room just big enough for our party.  The server brought up four separate courses over the next two hours in an elevator (we had opted for a set menu at the recommendation of the restaurant):

It was juices, and yogurt parfaits, and the most delicious eggs I've ever eaten, and eggs Benedict, and pancakes (the most delicious Hannah has ever eaten, as she says).  And we were in this beautiful room with an open window overlooking a garden square in Granada.  It was amazing.

And this is where our day goes a bit south.  Many of the outlaws were looking forward to visiting the Alhambra.  We had talked about it, Glo had heard about it in her Spanish classes, and it really is THE site to see in Andalusía.  I had the tickets, and I had a plan for us to leave with plenty of time to walk there and meet our tour guide 15 minutes before the tour started.  And yes, for the first time in visiting Alhambra I-don-t-know-how-many-times, I had reserved and paid for a tour guide.  About $600 for all of us.

Glo was late.  In fact, ten minutes before we were supposed to leave the apartment, I had called up to Glo's room because I hadn't heard anything from them.  They were all sleeping, and unfortunately, that caused us to leave 15 minutes late.  I figured it would be okay--we would still arrive on time.

The calls started coming from the tour company.  Where are you? Why aren't you at the meeting point? 

We got to the general area of Alhambra, but unfortunately, I hadn't paid much attention to where we were supposed to meet them.  I just knew it was at the main entrance.  Because I couldn't understand the signs, and because we weren't really taking time to read them, I just trusted in John and followed him.  Bad idea.

I don't know the actual elevation change, but we were running straight up a mountain while fielding incessant phone calls from the tour company.  Long story short, we missed the tour.

It was horrible.  I never run late, so I don't process that kind of disappointment very well.  And thinking of all the money we lost.  I couldn't talk to anybody but Hannah because I was so mad.  In the end, John got our tickets, but the tour was gone, and we just ended up wandering around the Alhambra, once again, not really knowing what we were seeing.  It was a huge disappointment.

I was thankful, though, for Hannie who tried to make anything sweet out of a sour situation.  We play the board game Alhambra all of the time, and she took it upon herself to identify the different parts of the real Alhambra that we play with in the game.  The TURM was a good laugh especially.  And the GARTENS?

Das Garten

 

Can you see "der Turm"?

I was struck by the similarity between the Alhambra and so many mosques we had seen the year before in Morocco.  It's crazy to realize the same people had lived in those two different places for thousands of years.

We then looked at the shops around Alhambra, and in a strange turn of events, nobody bought anything even though I think everyone planned on buying something.  I mean, they've seen my inlaid-wood music box from Granada their entire lives, but it was like nobody could commit.  Maybe it's because we didn't know why it was a tradition since we missed the tour.  I don't know.

 

But in the end, we walked several more miles back to the heart of Granada for dinner and had what many of us still think of as the best food of the trip: La Nonna Carmela, a gluten free Italian restaurant.

Seriously, this restaurant deserves its own post.  Our server was the nicest Spaniard we had met so far.  The place was air conditioned and beautiful inside.  And the food? John talked about his salad for the rest of the trip, and I was able to find a gorgonzola sauce that I could put on top of gnocchi a la "tortellini gorgonzola" that I used to order at Roma's in Speicher.  Seriously, if they had rented rooms in the back, I would've just stayed there the rest of our trip.

Gnocchi gorgonzola: I had already started eating it before I remembered to take the picture!