Europe 2021: Setenil

Europe 2021:

Setenil

Very short one today. Setenil de las Bodegas is a small town in the Cadiz province of Spain that is known for it's whitewashed houses built into the rocks and cliffs. We stopped here for lunch on our drive from Granada to Ronda at the suggestion of a friend of mine. It was an excellent stop. 

It's a small town, maybe 2,000 people, but I assume crawling with tourists most days. It's not an easy place to navigate, so find the parking garage as you enter town and just walk the rest. 

One thing we found interesting was the main road through all of the restaurants and shops is active with cars! I can't believe people don't get run over daily walking along the narrow streets. We sat there eating lunch as cars just drove right by, constantly. I was extra careful - I didn't want to survive armed conflicts all over the globe only to be killed by a Dacia Sandero doing 10 mph.  

Anyway, if you're in the region, Setenil makes for a unique stop and an entertaining lunch or dinner.

Branelle's rock climbing obsession on this trip continues.

Europe 2021: The Alhambra

Europe 2021:

The Alhambra

No visit to Granada can be made without a stop at the Alhambra. This is on our "100 Places" wall, and most other can't miss lists as well. If sits atop the city, visible from just about everywhere. We hiked up to the entrance one day and spent the better part of 4-5 hours touring.

You can take a bus up, but if you walk it's no joke. Once you get to the top there is a place for refreshments before entering.

The Alhambra itself is a large complex with beautiful gardens and very intricate carvings adorning the interiors. It's very impressive, but not overly stunning. 

Masks were still required when visiting national sites in Spain at the time. Most people followed along, as did we, but when outside we kind of ditched them and no one said anything. It was too hot for masks.

We noticed a lot of what I call "Instagramers" on this trip. Usually it was guys or girls taking pictures of mostly girls who were way overdressed for the location and posing like crazy. I decided that I would start an Instagram page (I didn't) called "Unimpressed American" where I would kind of just be 'eh' and look generally unimpressed in front of some of the most impressive sites around the globe. 

Tomfoolery aside, the Alhambra is an impressive stop and reason enough to visit Granada - you're certainly not coming to Granada without heading up to the Alhambra. It towers over the city and is worthy of a spot on the '100 Places' list.

 

Europe 2021: Granada

Europe 2021:

Granada

As previously stated, I am very behind on these posts. I'm going minimalistic - pictures with a little explaining. After Cordoba we headed to Granada. We rented an apartment here for a few days that had parking and a view of the Alhambra (which I'll cover in a subsequent post). The parking was an adventure. To get to it, we had to get our huge (by Euro standards) VW Caddy into a tiny lift at the top of an impossibly steep cobblestone hill.

We did it! This was in doubt right up until we crammed the thing in there. While the owner was helping me lower the Caddy into the underbelly of Granada, Branelle carried all our luggage down a couple flights of stairs and waited for us at the apartment entrance.

Parking aside, which is hard to find in some cities, the reason we chose this place was that it had spectacular views of the iconic Alhambra from it's balconies. 

The apartment itself was kind of cool. It had a couple of bedrooms and a kitchen we never used, but it really fit the city and was ideally located to walk anywhere we wanted to go, which was awesome because we weren't about to take that car out until the end of the week.

Granada was a pretty decent city. We stayed to the touristy areas and enjoyed walking around and eating a lot. It's a lot of steep and narrow streets with a Moorish charm and lots of shops and restaurants. 

When it was time to move on, we extracted our little van from the parking "garage" by ourselves. This was much easier then getting it in, but only because there weren't many other cars down there. If all the spots had been full, we might still be down there.

Europe 2021: Cordoba

Europe 2021:

Cordoba

I'm so far behind posting pictures from this trip that I'm just going to give up on the commentary for the most part and drill through the pictures from the locations. Next up on our itinerary was the city of Cordoba. 

There are other things to see in Cordoba, but of course the main thing people come to the city to visit is the famous Mezquita de Cordoba. It's an active cathedral today and holds a daily Mass. The structure is fascinating and it holds great importance in the history of Islamic architecture. 

Beyond the Mosque, there are remnants of Roman architecture throughout Cordoba. It's a decent walking city - at least the old town around the river. We stayed in this area while we were here and just roamed. We visited a few sites and ate and generally just hung out. Our hotel was directly across the street from the Mezquita.

Casa El Pimpo!

I got a haircut.

Uh-oh. Nel's face issues are back.

So we have this rule when we travel - it's really more of a guideline, but whatever - that we only eat at places that we can't get back home. Every once in a while I will break that rule. In this case, for some reason, I was craving Burger King at probably 1:00am. 

Branelle - just sitting on the steps of one of the most famous examples of Islamic Architecture in the world, at 1:00am.....waiting as I grab a Whopper!

Breakfast at our hotel.

We stayed at the Hotel El Conquistador, which was right across the street from the Mezquita. When you walked out the front door, you were about 30 feet from one of the entrances to it. The common areas were quite nice, but the room wasn't great. Location was impossible to beat though.