Next Stop: Granada (The Pomegranate)

 1 April 2015, Wednesday

It's raining. A perfect day to depart a beautiful city with less sorrow. It's been a whirlwind romance even in the fog of jet lag. We meet our driver, Alberto Garcia, as his card says, and we are on to revisit Barcelona's El Prat Airport. The airplane is full of travelers going south for Easter and the flight is an uneventful one and a half hours. We arrive to disembark on the tarmac old school at the Federico Garcia Lorca Granada-Jaen Airport in the  sunny, eighty degree heat of southern Spain.

Finally, we meet Carlos Lopez, who delivers us to the Hotel Hesperia Granada in due course.

It is an elegant building perfectly located in the heart of the historic district. We move in to a "superior room," complete with king size bed and large bath with double sinks and full blast air-conditioning. It is very comfortable.

Our afternoon begins with a walk around the hotel vicinity through the narrow Moorish streets of the old city. No one is around as the Spanish stay indoors during the heat of the day. But we do not have that luxury given that we have only two days to visit. So we walk.

Granada is situated between the Mediterranean Sea and the Guadalquivir River with the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the distance.  Since the Bronze Age, people have lived in the Granada Hills and in the Albaicin. The Moors occupied Granada beginning in the 8th century and its golden period came during the reign of Nasrids from 1238-1492. Then the Spanish Catholic Monarchs reclaimed the city.  Jews, Christians and Muslims coexisted in this part of the world during the Moors' occupation.

We walk toward the Darro River passing #26 on the map--Nuestra Senora de Las Augustinas, a large church decorated for Easter.  We continue in the direction of the River and pass a beautiful public library in a garden not yet blooming. We walk along the dry river bed for a time in the hot sun before deciding to seek shade on the other side of the street. Duh!
Here we are at the foot of the Realejo, the Jewish quarter at the time of the Nasrid Dynasty. This neighborhood was once home to 50,000 Jews working as tax collectors, doctors,

ambassadors, and tradesmen. Many Jews were cobblers and leather tanners working side by side with traders in linen, wool, cotton and silks. Silver and gold traders worked here as well.  Jews commonly spoke many languages, probably a useful skill when selling wares to people from many lands.

Today this neighborhood is quiet. Children are playing in the park while adults sit quietly in the shade drinking cool beer and wine. We walk up the side of the hill for a time noticing the pure whitewashed houses nestled into the hill, so characteristic of Andalusia. It is beautiful--the red begonias and green Lebanon firs against the white walls is striking. We eventually take respite in a cafe drinking water, beer and a glass of wine before heading back to our hotel.


The Spanish Easter processions are in full swing this Wednesday before Easter and each parish is scheduled to walk, in turn from their parish church to the main church and back.
People line the streets to see the hooded penitents and loud horn-blowing bands file slowly by the throngs. Women in black dresses cover their heads in mantillas firmly placed with decorative combs and walk on the sidelines.

We continue to head home..

There we rest and plan our next move. We eat at the Corrala del Carbon,

a restaurant in walking distance from our hotel serving local recipes. We are the only guests arriving at 8PM on the nose. But our servers are charming and helpful, if amused by our North American ways. Another couple arrives, clearly Spanish, if not locals, and settle into the corner table at the opposite side of the restaurant.

When we leave, the tapas bar is in full swing but we are heading to bed. A regular refrain, I notice...