Day 2: Granada/Gibraltar

We weren't able to go out for tapas the first night in Granada, but we still got there in time to go through Alhambra which has been on my bucket list to see for 20 years.  It's stunning!

The Alhambra is the last Moorish palace before they were expelled from Spain in 1492.  Carlos V then added his own palace along side of it to add to its opulence.  I would love to have been there when all of it was painted and the stain glass was sill in tact.  It must have been breathtaking.

 I love that they decorated with quotes from the Quran in the actual walls.  "Allah" looks like a cursive W.  "Allah is victorious" is repeated 9,000 times throughout the palace!

 The ceiling is the 8-pointed Muslim star:

 The Courtyard of the Lions:

 The view of the Albayzín neighborhood:

 I loved all the orange trees all around the grounds.  The gardens smelt amazing!  I wish there was a way to preserve smells.

We spent the whole morning at the Alhambra and then worked our way back downhill to grab some lunch and head even further South to Gibraltar.  Gibraltar is a tiny country on the very tip of Spain that speaks mostly English, uses Pounds, and is a British commonwealth.  It's a bit crazy because you park on the Spanish side of the border and walk through customs.  You quite literally walk across their airport runway to get into town.  We found a taxi to take us to the tram to go all the way up the Rock of Gibraltar.   I have almost no pictures from our time in Gibraltar, so I found a couple pictures from online to remind me of the rock and the cable car.

The view on top is amazing.  We made the mistake of thinking it would be fun to walk the whole way down the rock.  The experience was rather painful.  The road weaves back and forth all the way down, but it has a bunch of unmarked forks in the road, so it was really hard to tell if we were making much progress or if we were going in circles.   I believe the most common phrase I heard from my husband was, "Get me off this damn rock!"  Since he never swears I knew he must be serious.  Hahaha. 

 We did get to see the monkeys on our way down, so there's a little something to pretend like it was worth the privilege to pay to walk down.  Yep- they charge you to walk down the rock.  Do yourself a favor and just take the cable car back down. 

We finished our time in Gibraltar in true British style with well deserved fish and chips and a toffee pudding before taking a taxi back to customs.  There was no way we were walking anymore.  At the end of the day we totaled 13 miles and 34 flights of stairs.  We were more than ready to put up our feet when we got to our hotel that evening.