Granada - Blogabond

The city of Granada is a hectic mixture of young and old, Gringo and native. I live in the heart of the actual city and right next to a ritzy tourist strip of shops and restaurants so our North American and European volunteers are fortunately not so out of place. We are luckily within a walking distance of all the places one might need to go while in the city. Aside from walking, transportation consists of cars, buses, 1-4 people chilling on a bike and horse drawn carriages. The horse drawn carriages produce a signature aroma that, combined with the many meat and fruit market vendors around, keeps one´s nose on its toes.

Two main languages are spoken here: Spanish and car horn honking. The latter is used to express anything and everything by car drivers, though the reasons for doing so remain unclear to this writer. As for the former, being immersed in a Spanish speaking environment has already helped me improve my speaking skills and will undoubtedly continue to do so.

Yesterday, all of the new volunteers (there are about 7) went with our taxista Felipe and saw all 6 of the schools that La Esperanza serves in rural Granada. I have been placed in La Epifania, a primary school serving kindergarten through 5th grade. Its a short walk followed by a 10 minute bus ride away and was quite the adventure for my first day. More on that in the next post!
Ciao!

written by

mls12 on April 6, 2010 from Granada, Nicaragua

from the travel blog: Volunteering with La Esperanza Granada in Granada, Nicaragua

tagged Granada and 2nd

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Granada, Spain

The past few days we have been in Granada (which actually means pomegranate in spanish) in order to see the Alhambra and a couple of other places.

The next day we went to the Alhambra, a Moorish palace converted to a fort by the Spanish when they reconquered Spain. The Alhambra was the winter palace for the Moorish roaylty while the adjacent Generalife was occupied in the Summer.

Here is the Alhambra from the outside:

But the Interior was the neat part with numerous courtyards, and the spanish/moorish architecture used in many of the palaces we've visited. Here is one of the more famous sections of the Alhambra, el patio de los leonares, featuring a Fountain surronded by lions which spray water from their mouths.

We stayed at the site for a good 4 and a half hours and here are the pictures we took.

The Alhambra is the most popular tourist destination in Spain and it isn't hard to see why. It was easily the grandest palace we've visited and one of the overall coolest period.

On our final day in Granada we visited the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca's House. He was a socialist and a homosexual during Franco's regime and he was assasinated for his ideals in 1936. We were not allowed to take pictures inside.

And that was it for Granada, a neat stop on our trip.

written by

andres3009 on July 15, 2012 from Granada, Spain

from the travel blog: Spain Trip 2012

tagged Spain, Granada, Lorca and Alhambra

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