Today we visited the Alhambra of Granada. Our reservation allowed us general access from 2pm until 8pm with access to the Palacios Nazaries at 5:30pm. Before heading up to the Alhambra, we picked up some sandwiches and drinks for lunch from Greens & Berries in Plaza Nueva.

We started our tour in the Generalife Gardens. As we were walking up the hill to the gardens, we noticed that water was flowing down man-made streams/gutters along the side of the road. Once we entered the gardens and started reading the Rick Steves guide, we discovered the flowing water plays a big role in the Alhambra. You can see fountains and streams everywhere. The gardens were fairly pretty and are a modern take on an ancient Moorish garden.

We continued our tour to the old Alcazaba, which doesn’t have much of historical interest in it, but does offer great views of the Albayzin and Sacramonte area. Next up was Charles V’s palace which is interesting because it is square on the outside, but has a large circular courtyard in the middle. There were a few couples taking wedding photos in the courtyard.

The most heavily trafficked location in the Alhambra is the Palacios Nazaries, which was used by both Moorish sultans and Spanish kings. Its claim to fame is as the location where the Moors surrendered to the Spanish in the 15th century. In my opinion, the most spectacular part of the palace is the recently reconstructed lion fountain (fountain mounted on top of several lion statues), which really highlights how majestic this building once was.

After a long day of walking, we treated ourselves to a fancy dinner at Damasqueros. The service and food were spectacular and the prices were reasonable for the quality. I would definitely recommend it. If you make a reservation at 8:30pm, you will have the whole restaurant to yourself, as Spaniards don’t seem to eat dinner until at least 9:30pm.

Our reservations for the Alhambra are not until tomorrow, so today we are doing all of the other sightseeing in Granada. After eating an early lunch at a tapas restaurant, we followed Rick Steves’s advice and took a public bus that circled the Sacramonte area. At some point along the route, the bus driver suggested that we get off and see the Sacramonte Caves Museum. The walk up to the museum was long and hot. What we found was a quaint open air folk museum of the gypsy population that previously inhabited the caves. After a refreshing beverage break, we trudged back down the hill and boarded the bus back to Plaza Nueva.

After a quick siesta, we walked around the Royal Chapel connected to the local cathedral. Its claim to fame are the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain. Later in the evening, we took a bus to the crowded Saint Nicolas square where we attempted to watch the sunset and then took a Rick Steves walking tour of the area.

Today was a travel day. After a quick breakfast in Tarifa (I love how everywhere serves fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast), we hiked to the bus terminal to take a bus to Algeciras. Upon arriving, we crossed the street from the Algeciras bus terminal to the train station and boarded a 4+ hour slow-speed train to Granada. I slept most of the ride, but Valerie mentioned that the scenery was quite beautiful. Once in Granada, other tourists occupied the available taxis, so we took the very convenient high capacity bus from just outside the station to the Cathedral and walked to our hotel.

Chefchaouen is a small city about 2.5 hours southwest of Tangier. We hired a tour guide to drive us to Chefchaouen, take us on a walking tour of the city, and then drive us back to the ferry port to meet a ferry back to Tarifa. The city is probably famous for many reasons, but what struck us is its color. The bottom half of all the buildings in the old town are blue. Our guide said that the color was for “the eyes and the heat” meaning that it is pretty and keeps the town cool. I have no idea if this is true or not.

We started our walk at the top of the old town near the “waterfall” which was actually a natural spring which flowed into the town’s clothes-washing area. We walked down through the town and admired the twisting alleys, blue walls, and communal bakeries before reaching the plaza at the bottom. We ate lunch at a nearby restaurant that only served tourists and cost a bit more but did not lead to any intestinal distress. (Yay!)

During the long drive, we noticed that everyone in Morocco drives with their windows down. As far as we can tell, no one uses air conditioning in their vehicles.

Tomorrow, we are taking the train to Granada where we will be spending three days.

During our travels, we often wonder if we can drink the tap water wherever we happen to be. In the United States, tap water is usually potable, available at public drinking fountains, and served for free in restaurants; bottled water is usually considered a luxury. However, this is not the case in many countries. As a general rule, we have noticed that the cheaper bottled water is, the less drinkable the tap water is.

We woke up early so we could eat breakfast at 8am and catch the 9am ferry to Tangier. We had churros for breakfast since it was the only café open at 8am. After scarfing down some churros, we picked up our tickets from the dock, passed through Spanish immigration and boarded the ship. On the ship, we had to line up again for Moroccan immigration before we could disembark.

Finally, we were in Africa (the 5^th continent visited in our various travels)! Valerie was afraid that we would face an onslaught of touts when we disembarked the ferry. And we were, but not more than in Sicily or Sardinia. After waiting a few minutes, we met our tour driver who drove us to meet our tour guide. We did a bunch of touristy things, like drink Moroccan mint tea, ride camels, and eat a hardy “typical” lunch of bread, soup, tagine, and fruit. After lunch, our guide led us on a walking tour of the medina (old town Tangier) that ended in the big square.

We walked around town on our own, but without a guide to “protect” us, we were frequently assailed by more touts, which Valerie fended off for us. After getting lost several times, we found our way to the hotel and sat on their terrace, admiring the view of the new cruise ship terminal being built below.

Tomorrow, we’re taking a taxi tour of Chefchaouen before heading back to Tarifa.

We took a long bus ride to Tarifa today. The town was crowded because of a kite-surfing competition (that we didn’t know about). After checking into our hotel, we walked along the beach, watching the throngs of tourists and locals enjoying the warm sun and sea.

We found a restaurant on TripAdvisor and shared a plate of filet steak and two glasses of tinto de verano. We have noticed that Spanish restaurants do not mind if you split a plate. (However, they do think it is weird if you split a drink.)

Tomorrow, we are headed to Tangier in Morocco!

We slept in until noon and missed our included breakfast. Around 1pm, we headed out for lunch, which would probably be considered an early lunch by Spaniards. We shared a 5 tapas and .5L of sangria combo.

We finally started our sightseeing and visited the cathedral and the royal alcazar. The cathedral is the largest by surface area (according to the Guinness Book), but otherwise quite similar to other large cathedrals. The royal alcazar was even more Moorish and grander than the previous alcazars we have seen. Behind the alcazar is a large garden that would be lovely to stroll through on a warm evening. Alas, we had no time to stroll as it was time for our flamenco show.

The Casa del Flamenco show was a lot like other flamenco shows we’ve seen. There were one male and one female dancer, a guitarist, and a vocalist. The male dancer and guitarist were quite good.

Afterward, we walked to the Plaza de Espana, which Rick did not recommend but was rated highly on TripAdvisor. A beautiful landmark, it is definitely worth a visit, even if only for a couple of minutes.

It was getting late, so we headed to the restaurant directly outside our hotel and shared a plate and some drinks before going to bed.

Today, we took the train to Sevilla via Madrid. On the ride south, Renfe (Spanish train system) played the movie Le nom des gens (The Names of Love) in Spanish and French (with Spanish subtitles). Since neither Valerie nor I are fluent in Spanish or French, we spent a great deal of the movie trying to figure out what was going on in the quirky French film. (We still don’t know.)

After arriving at Sevilla, we walked to our hotel in the Santa Cruz barrio. (In retrospect, we should have taken a bus.) After settling in, we took a Rick Steves walking tour of the barrio, during which we met another couple doing the same walking tour. We also signed up for a Flamenco dance show tomorrow recommended by Rick.

Valerie has been having trouble sleeping on the hard Spanish beds. Since we don’t have any early morning plans for tomorrow morning, we will probably sleep in.

We woke up around 8am this morning to catch our trains to Toledo via Madrid. Rick Steves recommends spending two nights in Toledo, but we only scheduled one, so our tour of the city was abbreviated. Our first stop was the cathedral and its associated museum. Admission is a steep 8 euro, but it’s a slightly more impressive cathedral than most. Our other sightseeing stop was the Santa Cruz Museum, which is free and will be featuring an exhibit on El Greco in the future, but sadly not while we were there. On the way back to the hotel, we ate a dinner of tapas and wine at a restaurant outside the cathedral.