Weekend Indulgence
travel | July 6, 2009
Driving from Madrid to Granada Joel had his doubts about what to expect as we hit the Sierra Nevada highway and headed south towards the mountains. I couldn’t really enlighten him all that much as my travel planning had extended only to booking flights, transport, and accomodation and the rest was to be made up day by day….
Scored an awesome room in a cozy hotel, Hotel Abadia. We were delighted to find that attention had been made to making the place homely yet traditional, with the bonus of free wi-fi in our rooms and pretty much valet parking. Our location also made it easy for us to escape the 40 degree heat and siesta in the afternoon, which we have done for the past couple of days. We have also managed to make our first beach trip yesterday, driving further south to the nearest beach called Salobrena, packed with locals, blue skies and gravelly sand.
While I lazed under a thatch umbrella Joel went wandering for a bit and came back with these photos of cliff divers he had made friends with. He said they were excited to see someone with a camera because it wasn’t all that usual in that part of local town and wanted evidence of their jumps sent through to email. So dangerous…!!!
Sunday rolled around and we had booked ourselves tickets to the early morning session to see the Alhambra Palace and decided to walk the steep incline instead of taking the bus which was rather satisfying. The place was pretty amazing and my neck got tired looking up at the incredibly ceilings and detailed sculpturing…and then felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland in the surrounding gardens.
After Alhambra, we had a slow brunch then indulged in a 4 hour siesta and escaped the heat entirely between 1-5pm, heading out again for a Hammam bath and massage we had booked for 6pm. I was totally sold on the beauty of the website images which I’ve excerpted below since we weren’t allowed to bring our cameras in. These are actually the original baths used in historic times, situated at the base of the Alhambra and besides the massages being kinda ticklish, it was definitely a very well-spent afternoon and on the recommendation list for anyone travelling through here…
Finally for dinner, we headed to a place called Ermita I had spotted on our earlier walks and I’d rate it the best Spanish tapas we’ve had so far: codfish carpaccio, oxtail carpaccio, iberico ham, fried cod balls with pepper sauce, and iberico ham croquettes. YUM!
P.S. Yes I know look like a red indian after one glass of sangria :P
4 comments
awww i love love love jamon iberico!!!! hehe trish your rennie didn’t work huh?
!!!!!!11!!1 I AM SOO JEALOUS! It looks like that you two are having a blast!! These pictures look absolutely amazing!! YUM YUM FOOD! And LOL@red indian! :P Cutie!
Jeebee: I don’t think I can eat boring ham anymore. And no, I didn’t eat my rennie that night I kinda never remember to bring it out but I will remember sometime in Barcelona :)
Linda: Haha yes, I’m a half glass asian booooo!!
you will need to source it when you’re back in sydney – i’m sure there is a spanish deli somewhere!!! and when you do find it, please do let me know for future reference :)