Weekend in Granada

This past weekend, the whole high school group had the opportunity to visit Granada, a beautiful city about 3 hours away from Sevilla at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. We arrived on Friday afternoon after classes and checked into our hotel in the city center. We were joined again by Angel, the guide from our trip to Cádiz, and several other CIEE staff and program leaders, who took us on a walking tour of the vibrant, multicultural city, showing us how to naviagate around the centro and locate our meeting points. The students then had a free evening to explore the delicious dinner options in Granada - the city features many traditional tapas bars in which you order a beverage (even non-alcoholic!) and the waiter brings you free tapas, allowing you to eat and drink for very little cash and try lots of local fare. 

On Saturday, we started the morning with a visit to the Alhambra, one of Granada´s iconic sights and the eighth most visited monument in the world. The Alhambra is a royal palace and fortress dating back to pre-13th century Granada, when it was constructed as the palace of the Nasrid kingdom. After the Christian Reconquista the Alhambra continued to be remodeled and added to, and today it is an incredible blend of Islamic and Christian architecture and history. We strolled through the many intricate carved and tiled chambers, the extensive gardens and the Generalife, the residential estate connected to the Alhambra. Saturday afternoon we had a bit more free time, as well as time for the students to work on their video projects for the final week of Carlos´class. 

Sunday morning after a big buffet breakfast at the hotel, we headed up the winding hills that surround Granada to tour the Albaicín, a medieval Moorish neighborhood of mazelike cobblestone streets and white houses.