For our honeymoon, Ke and I decided to go to Spain! With all of the flight deals to Europe this year, we impulsively decided to go to Spain during Thanksgiving. Our roundtrip ticket from San Francisco to Barcelona was only $550 a ticket. In all we spent about 7 days in Spain, 2 of those in Granada.
This trip was also both of our first time in Europe! Barcelona was just amazing, stunningly beautiful with amazing people and food. But Granada stole my heart.
Arriving in Granada
Since we only had 7 days in Spain, we decided to fly from Barcelona to Granada. If we could do this trip over again, we would have definitely planned it for at least 10 days, there were a lot of places we didn’t have the to visit such as Seville.
Once we landed, our hotel sent a taxi to pick us up. Our hotel, Gar Anat Hotel Boutique, was stunning!! I highly recommend staying here. Our hotel was located at the very center of Granada, right in between the different neighborhoods, down a tiny street in The Realejo, the Old Jewish quarter of the city.
The hotel had maybe a dozen rooms surrounding the courtyard within the hotel. Each room is dedicated to stories about famous pilgrims and travelers. The hotel itself used to be a pilgrim hospital in the old days.
Shopping and Food
Unfortunately Ke came down with food poisoning in Barcelona the night before our flight to Granada. So after we checked in, the first meal we had was udon at a Japanese restaurant that was surprisingly delicious.
While Ke rested at the hotel, I wandered around the first day to the shopping district. The next day we tried some tapas at Restaurante Carmela near our hotel – Ke’s stomach still couldn’t handle the richness of the food but it was delicious!
Granada Cathedral
The next day with Ke feeling better, we began our sightseeing! We wandered the many courtyards downtown and also stopped by the cathedral for pictures!
The Alhambra
The highlight of the trip was obviously the Alhambra. We booked general entrance tickets to the Alhambra about two months in advanced from the Spain ticketmaster. We started at the palace first for our 9:30am entrance time and then explored the Alcazaba and Generalife. The Alhambra is absolutely stunning, the pictures speak for themselves.
The Albaicin
After exploring The Alhambra we grabbed some food and then wandered around the Albaicin before our appointment at an arab bathhouse. The Albaicin is the Moorish part of Granada and the oldest part of the city. The roads are tiny and windy and the best thing to do here is to just get lost.
Afterwards we made our way to Hammam Al Andalus, a beautiful arabic bathhouse. A reservation is necessary to visit a bathhouse, we made this reservation about a month in advanced. I wish I could show pictures of the actual baths because they were beyond gorgeous and my favorite part of our Granada trip. You feel like you’re in a movie.
The Granada Sunset
After the bathhouse we raced up the tiny, hilly streets to catch the famed sunset at St. Nicholas Square. We got very lucky because it had drizzled earlier that day and just as the sun was setting, the sky cleared and we made it to the square just in time to snap these photos :).
Romantic Granada
That night, while fetching Ke more soupy noodles for his recovering stomach from another Asian restaurant, I too came down with food poisoning xD. Luckily for us, we weren’t sick at the same time and both recovered within a day. Despite getting food poisoning, Granada was my favorite part of Spain. We were able to rest and relax after a busy first few days in Barcelona and revel in our honeymoon <3. I can’t wait to visit Granada again.
