Granada Studio Tours.

Friday 23rd November 2018 - Granada or is it Manchester?

We arrived yesterday in Granada looking forward to doing the Studio Tours in the place that made Coronation Street, Krypton Factor, World on Action and more favourites including.....Sooty and Sweep!  We were really disappointed to find out that there was only an Alhambra and a Catherdral, most cities have a Cathedral and even Keswick has an Alhambra Cinema!

As it turns out Granada has lots of history from the period of the Moors and the Renaissance period of the Catholic monarchs.  We were actually very excited to come and see the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Alhambra, Janice has been before and loved it and it was high on my list of places to see.

We found our wild camp place.  It's a bit cheeky because it's in a residential area above the old town area near the old town wall.  We are parked in a street parking bay so we get some traffic coming and going but it's quiet at night.  There are another three or four camper vans as well on the same street.  One van is British and we had Graham and Denise over for drinks last night.  They are from the Surrey area but are originally from Huddersfield and Tynemouth respectively.  We only have to walk through the old town walls to get a stunning view of the whole city.

Not a bad view, you can even see snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains in the background.  You get a good impression of the Alhambra and below us is the area called The Albaicin which comprises the old town, narrow cobbled lanes and quaint white houses.

The Albaicin is lovely with the river Darro at the bottom and lots of lovely lanes running through the area.  The road leads to the Place Nuevo....

This is the Real Chancilleria, built by the Catholic Monarchs in 1530.

We walked a short way out of the city this morning to see the Abadia del Sacramonte....

It is a large building that is rather delapidated from the outside but the cloister, the chapel and the caves were very interesting.  It was not very touristy either (which is a plus point for us).  The Spanish guide tried to give us information in English and we managed to learn two things......the Patron Saint of Granada was Cecillio and he was martyred in the caves at the Abadia AND most importantly the best place for lunch in Granada.

We had a variety of dishes including paella, langoustine and ham in sherry, croquette and this version of black pudding.  I would like to tell you that it isn't as good as a Bury Black Pudding but this one was sooooo good.  We had a cheeky Rose wine too.  The place was busy with locals and the service was great.  The restaurant is called Los Manuelles just off Place Nuevo.

We had a little reccie up to the Alhambra and found you could enter parts of it free but not the Alcazaba, the Palace of Nazaries and Generalife.  I will do pictures of the Alhambra on a separate blog.  No words required.

We also went to the vast Cathedral.  We even paid the 5 euro entry fee....and I wasn't a senior citizen this time!   I can't show half the photos but here's a couple.

Every side chapel was amazing nevermind the main nave.

I can't get the whole Cathedral into a photo.

There's lots more to the city that I can't show and lots we didn't get chance to see.  We never saw any Ford Granada's or any Grenadine liquor and we didn't see a Flamenco dance show....when you've seen the dancers at the Benidorm Palace do it!  Granada is supposed to be where the dance started by the gypsies who lived in the caves on the road to the Sacramento Abbey.

Rebekah kindly sent me an authentic Granada photo.....

All the way from a dark and soggy Manchester!