ANDALUCIA: Seville and Granda

Andalucia: the place described as the cultural capital of Spain, the birthplace of bullfighting and flamenco, and our home for the last week. During that time we have visited the cities of Seville and Granada and have well and truly soaked up the culture of Spain.

 To set the scene, Seville is known as the 'frying pan of Europe', and after being there I can see why: it's now Autumn and temperatures rarely dropped below 37 degrees.

The sun is so hot and dry that by afternoon we were adopting the Spanish tradition of siesta, just to escape the heat. Mike and I keep trying to remind ourselves that in a few months time when winter hits, we will be reminiscing about days when temperatures are so high. But with that aside, Seville has such a nice atmosphere that you would put up with any amount of heat to be there. Everything there is exactly what you picture about Spain- delicious (and much cheaper than Barcelona) tapas and churros, Spanish guitar and flamenco dancing, and the brutal sport of bullfighting, all wrapped up to make this one laid back place. Barcelona may have technically been our first stop in the country, but it wasn't until Seville that it really felt like we were in Spain.

In Seville, we got to do the typically Spanish things and actually see the culture for ourselves:

THE PLAZA DEL TOROS

A visit to Seville, the home of bullfighting, wouldn't have been complete without seeing for ourselves where the bullfights take place. With our student cards (that are only just a little out of date right now, but the Spanish don't know that), we managed to get into the Museo Taurino and the arena of the bull fights for just €2 for a tour. I admit, I didn't really know what happened in bullfights or why they even had them in Spain (and naively, I thought it was just angering the bulls and making them chase the matadors to give a few thrills). In reality it's a gory fight until the bulls are killed and although brutal, was pretty interesting to hear about. Turns out bullfights began as a form of military training, as a way for soldiers to test their bravery in combat, and when they realised people liked watching it (i still don't understand that part), the Spanish royalty decided to make it a spectators event and built the arena. The arena holds 12,000 people, and in the centre is the sandy floor where the fights take place. I'm pretty sure there were trails of red blood soaked into the sand....

On the tour we found out a bullfight has 3 stages: the first, where nobility ride around on horses with swords to 'weaken' the bulls, the second is where matadors try and anger the bulls by trying to put decorations on their horns (without getting gored), and then finally the bull is stabbed by the lead matador. If the bull is particularly famous it may be given mercy, only that means they get shipped off to a farm and then killed for their meat there (because apparently the Spanish will pay a lot for the meat of a good fighting bull). Don't think that really counts as mercy though??

We asked how many fights there are a year (40) and how many bulls are typically killed in a day (6)... So according to our calculations, 240 bulls die each year. It seems like such a strange and barbaric thing to do as a sport, but at the same time it was really interesting to see just how different our cultures are, since that is considered a norm over here.

FLAMENCO
Besides the bulls, the other big thing Andalucia is famous for is flamenco dancing. The b&b we were staying at told us about a place that holds free flamenco shows every night, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to see some flamenco for that price. We went to this place, bought a jug of sangria, and watched as a flamenco dancer, Spanish guitarist and singer performed three 30 minute shows. One day I would like to see a full performance with multiple dancers, but for a taste of flamenco this was the perfect way to see it. The dancer was so fierce when she was doing the flamenco, it was amazing: the way she stomped her feet, clapped her hands and threw her hands up were all so dramatic, it was very impressive to see (especially how fast she could do it!). We later found out in Granada that flamenco is a dance that actually originates from the gypsies, and I realised that despite trying to hassle you for money or shove a flower/rosemary sprig in your hands for money, the gypsies actually created something pretty spectacular.

ALCAZAR
Though not as grand as Granada's Alhambra (more on that later), this was our first hint of the impressive arabic architecture that we could expect when we got there. The Alcazar was not actually built by moors so they are kind of cheating there, but it still has some pretty impressive gardens- a total of eight different gardens in the palace grounds were our favorite part, complete with a hedge maze in one of the gardens that was pretty fun as well.

BARRIO DE SANTA CRUZ
Just behind the Alcazar, the neighborhood of Santa Cruz was a nice little area of Seville to get lost in. The streets are built in a kind of circular pattern, for a bit of a funny reason: Santa Cruz was once home to the Jewish neighborhood who ran the money lending services back in the day, meaning the area contained a lot of wealth. The streets were in circles so that any thief coming to steal the wealth would get lost and not be able to escape with the money! The streets are so narrow around this section as well that it meant you couldn't see around any corners, so we had a good little explore of the area trying to find our way out.

GRANADA on the other hand was a late addition to our itinerary. We were originally planning on going from Seville straight to Portugal, but when we heard that Granada is amazing and we realised we could buy a round trip on the bus for €40, we decided to check it out for ourselves for 3 nights- and we are so glad we did. Granada is this amazing mix of Spanish and Arabic culture in the one place; where gypsies make up a fair bit of the population and also where all international students come to study so it has a younger, modern vibe as well. It is this huge melting pot of cultures, with one whole area of the city described as 'a slice of Morocco in Spain'. And behind all of that is the Sierra Nevada mountain range, making for some pretty spectacular scenery as well.

We arrived in Granada to a place that had been recommended to us by other backpackers- the Granada Inn hostel. It was a modern place with a huge open air courtyard, and on our first afternoon we got to meet a group of people (some of them worked at the hostel so they knew the area) who we were with for the next 3 days. We went with them on a whirlwind tour of Granada in the afternoon, and basically got to see all of the main sights in a few hours with their local knowledge.

We did a tour of the street art of the area, and the German guy (whose name was Jan but it sounds like 'Yarn') walk around going "there's a picture, that's a picture, there's another one" in his German/English accent.. So here's a few of them:

We then went to a lookout point in the neighbourhood of Alabacin. Alabacin is a really interesting area, and we returned to this area the next day for a walking tour. Basically this is the neighbourhood that is the Morocco of Spain- when the Moors from Africa invaded Spain, they took over Granada and set up camp there. Because of this, much of Granada is heavily influenced by this style, and lots of the buildings in this neighbourhood are actually Arabic in their appearance. Fun fact- every single church in Granada was actually a mosque originally, and to turn them into churches they just stuck a cross on top of the existing monuments, and cut away the arabic arches to make them into Roman-style columns. Alabacin was the original area where the Arabic aristocrats lived, but in more recent times it had a reputation as a bit of a shady area. Luckily for us, that had changed in the last 10 or so years, so we could happily walk the little streets in this hilly area up to the main cathedral. On our afternoon tour with our hostel friends, we sat at a bar at the top of this area and had a beer (with free tapas) while the sun started to set.

Next up were the Sacramonte Caves which was one of the best/most random part of our Granada trip. Sacramonte is basically an area home to 'cave people', where originally the poorer Muslims made houses by carving into the rock. These days it is home to a thriving gypsy community, and it's pretty awesome to see the caves where they call home. Some of them are basically just holes cut into the hillside, whereas others are full on houses that extend from inside the caves with patios out the front, gardens and even satellite tv. We found out on our walking tour that these caves are great for surviving the conditions, because they stay at a constant 13-15 degrees, even when it is 45 degrees outside. Apparently they require constant maintenance though, and the people have to insulate and reinforce their walls before the winter rains hit otherwise they actually do collapse (kind of freaky). But we walked our way through their neighbourhood and up to a big lookout at the top and watched one of the most amazing sunsets I have seen.

ALHAMBRA
The main reason we- and every tourist for that matter- flocks to Granada is the Arabic palace by the name of the Alhambra.

The Alhambra is the most visited tourist attraction in Spain with about 3 million visitors per year. When you average that out to visitors per day, it means only one thing: a fight for entrance tickets. We had heard that tickets to the Alhambra needed to booked in advance, and so we thought that trying to buy on the day before was being organised. Apparently not. We had only one day spare in which we were planning to visit the Alhambra, and no tickets in hand. The only way to secure a ticket was to get to the Alhambra office by 8am on the day to get the final release tickets. Mike, being the awesome person that he is, stepped up and powered through a slight hangover, woke up at 7am and walked the half hour uphill trek to the office to get our tickets for that afternoon. What a guy.

We arrived at 2pm for our specified time to tour the palace, and all I can say is I can now see why the Alhambra is such a tourist Mecca. The grounds of the Nasrid Palaces are absolutely huge, and the architecture is amazing and so intricately detailed. I walked around just thinking 'wow' at each room we went to. The lonely planet book we had told us that the Arab style of architecture is so grand that it really takes your breath away, and after being there I couldn't agree more.

The generalife gardens are also part of the Alhambra grounds, and were so well kept it was lovely to walk around. We heard people at the hostel spent a whole day at the Alhambra, just sitting near the gardens and all the places that seem so relaxed because there's a waterfall flowing every way you turn, but we pulled ourselves away within 3 hours.

MENU UPDATE:
Andalucia well and truly delivered in providing the best of Spanish culture, including the best tapas we have had so far. In Seville we went to a place that had these vegetable wan-tons that apparently won the 'best tapas award' a couple of years ago, and mike had these creamy prawns wrapped in pastry as well. And we finally got to sample some delicious Spanish 'chocolate con churros' (donut-like sticks with thick hot chocolate) and we realised why we had trouble finding them earlier... They are considered breakfast in Spain!

Granada was by far the best for tapas culture though, because with every drink you buy at a bar, you get some free tapas. Our hostel ran 'tapas tours' every night where we would bar hop to about 3 places, get a €2 beer and have a progressive dinner by filling up on the free food. Someone told us a story that the reason they have free tapas is to stop people having drinks in the siesta time while businesses close and then going back to work drunk, so the tapas act as a way to soak up the alcohol. I am beginning to realise I love this kind of lifestyle they have over here....

AND NOW..
We have left Spain behind us for the moment while we travel around Portugal for the next 12 or so days and chase the sun while we can.
But winter is looking more and more exciting now- I have found out my parents have managed to get time off to come over after Christmas to Switzerland and Austria with us! Although by the time they get here in early 2013 it will be the coldest time of the year, i'm really looking forward to that time of year now.