Day 7

¡Hola from Granada! Today after a splendid breakfast buffet at the hotel, we took a walk through the Albaicin, which was a historically Arab neighborhood in Granda. The neighborhood had a lot of interesting sites, such as the water canals that were implemented throughout the city, old places of worship (churches and mosques), the snow-covered mountains, as well as a previously isolated part of the neighborhood in which the citizens would chop off the hands of artisans that tried to cheat them! The artisans would add extra weights to their scales to trick customers into paying more than they should have. If they were caught, the customer had the right to cut off the hand of said artisan and put the weights of trickery on the wall of the entrance to the neighborhood. Some of those weights were still there! After the walk, we met up with the bus at the hotel and drove to the Alhambra.  The Alhambra is an ancient Arabic that sits on top of a hill above the rest of the city, and is the most visited site in Spain. There, we took a guided tour through the elaborate gardens of the compound, then through the compound itself. The intricate design of the Alhambra was truly impressive especially considering that it was constructed in the fourteenth century! There was also an unexpected treat during the tour: a friend of our tour guide that hand-makes molds of the wall decals of the compound showed us one of her pieces! ¡Que casualidad! After the tour we had a couple hours of free time to have lunch and shop around! From the we rendezvoused at the hotel and then departed for another guided tour of the route of Federico García Lorca. While talking about the history of the author, we were simultaneously shown the places that had great influence on his life.  Some of these places included the houses he grew up in, the café in which he met with his fellow artists, the university at which he studied and was held hostage, the house in which he took refuge, and finally (as another surprise), the house Lorca and his family were placed under house arrest during the Spanish civil war. That was quite a treat! After such a long day, we dined at a tapas bar for dinner where we ate until our hearts content! Tonight we're resting up for a long journey back to Madrid in the morning! ¡Qué lindo es Granada!