Granada

To my many loyal followers, apologies for the long wait. Everything will make it on here eventually.

As you may or may not have heard,

we abandoned western Europe and decided to head east. After toying with the idea of saying forget Europe and spending a couple weeks in Thailand, we came to our senses and decided on eastern Europe. We chose to start in Budapest because the plane ticket was the cheapest on "Wizz Air" (great reason to choose a city) and we could go from there to Croatia and Slovenia and possibly Serbia etc. At this point it seems most realistic that we will be sticking around Slovenia and Croatia and then head to Greece before Israel. 

Before we left spain, however, we took a train to Granada. 

Leeor on his first of many Euro train rides.

I wanted to take Leeor there because I loved it when I went with Michelle back in 2005. We found a cute little hostel in the Moroccan area called Maktub. There was a nice group of young people working at the hostel for room - several Brits, an Irishman, a couple of Americans, and of course, an Israeli girl, who we made instant friends with. The group spent their time drinking wine in the common room, listening to music, and talking. Not a bad way to travel cheap... If you don't mind living in a room with six other dirty backpackers and sharing icky bathrooms.

After comparing travel plans with the dreadlocked hostel workers for a little while, we decided to hike up to Alhambra. We definitely chose a nice time to see Europe since every flower was in bloom. So many roses in the gardens! Anyway, the views of Granada from the Alhambra were beautiful.

The walk to Alhambra.

The view.

We returned to a rainy evening. We spent more time with the other travelers, chatting and listening to music, and went to get some dinner - 2 Euro Rioja and free tapas. You can basically spend no money on Granada if you are ok with mediocre tapas. We were totally ok with it. 

The next day Leeor found us a 5 hour hike that started in Beas de Granada (if I recall correctly) and ended right back in Granada. Apparently people create extremely detailed PDFs of hikes and put them online for travelers to use! We took a  regular bus up to Beas, a cute little hilltop town and followed the directions, which led us out to a lovely hike along the top of the hills at the base of the Sierra Nevada. To the left were peaks and to the right were valets. All around us were olive trees,  almond trees, red poppies, and purple and yellow wild flowers that I don't know the names of. The smell was sweet and though it was a bit chilly we warmed up as we hiked. The coolest thing about this hike was that it ended with us walking right by the Alhambra and straight into Granada. It was a long hike but beautiful and definitely worth it.

We went for some more cheap and delicious Rioja before the flamenco show. When Michelle and I were in Granada we went to a tiny little flamenco show in a small dark room that was like an underground wine cellar. 

Yes it is a tourist attraction, but I think a pretty legit one. When Michelle and I were there is 05 there were old men singing. This time there was a young man who was not as good, but it was still a great show. The flamenco dancer and the guitar player were pretty outstanding. After some more wine and free tapas, including a delicious gazpacho, we went to bed (sort of... we were forced to "go out" with the hostel dwellers to dance- which was really us walking from closed bar to closed bar, singing songs, and giving up and taking a taxi back to Maktub since we had gone so far). We returned to Madrid the next morning to await our flight to Budapest.

Next stop, Budapest, Zagreb, Ljuljana, and Bled!