Memories of La Alhambra

Thursday, April 15

In case you didn’t already know this, our moms are awesome. It’s true! They woke up super early Thursday morning to go and get tickets to La Alhambra for us. Turns out they only sell so many tickets every day and if you aren’t there in the first hour that the palace is open to get tickets, you don’t get tickets. They came back around 9am and woke us up. We had tickets to walk around the Palace of the Nazarene at 10:30 am. We had been told that if you don’t make it to the palace by the time specified on your ticket, you don’t get in. So we left our hotel at about 10:15. AHH.

We got to the main entrance and started running! We ran and ran. In case you don’t know this, La Alhambra IS HUGE. From the main entrance to the area, all of the signs say that it would take 20 minutes to walk to the palace. Well we ran it in 10, y’all. We got there, out of breath at 10:35 only to find that you could check in anytime up until 11am. HA. Well, at least we got our work out for the day! We stood in line and waited to get in while JL went to purchase an audio guide for herself and Marty. We made it inside and started walking around.

It’s so interesting to see all of the different religious influences within this palace. This is where Sultans, Muslim, and Christian leaders ruled from for centuries. It really is an amazing palace, full of amazing architecture, color and gorgeous gardens. We can definitely see why it was fought over and sought after for so many years. Once we made it out of the main palace, we continued exploring and checking out all of the awesome gardens.

After seeing all of the pretty flowers, it was time to head back towards town. We went and found some lunch at a great little Moroccan/Spanish restaurant up the street from the main square and had some awesome sangria. After lunch, we did some window shopping and walked around all of the cool shops in the area - it looked like the Arab shuk in the Old City of Jerusalem! We then slowly made our way back to the hotel. Where we hung out with our moms a bit longer. It was now time to part ways. We headed out to catch a bus to the bus station as our moms headed out to catch a shuttle to the Granada airport.

We are so glad and thankful that our moms got to party with us for a week and experience all of the fun and craziness that we have been having together. Thanks again to everyone that helped to make it happen - it was totally worth it! We gave them info on how to find us in case they got stranded due to Iceland’s volcanic ash cloud. You never know!

We made it to the bus station and bought our tickets for the next bus to Nerja (there is no direct train to Nerja, you have to go by bus). We tossed our stuff underneath, hopped aboard and went to sleep. After about an hour, we woke up with our necks bouncing all over the place and looked up to see that we were going through a crazy stretch within the Sierra Nevada mountains, full of hair pin turns, perilous drops, and amazing views. At several points we were above or in the clouds. It was really cool.

We eventually arrived in Nerja and found our hostel. We called the number posted on the door and a woman came to let us in. While checking in, we observed a Hamsa and a menorah in the hostel’s main office. We asked if she was Jewish. She explained that her family had only recently found out that their family was Jewish way back in the day. Her family was Jewish and once the Spanish Inquisition was kicking into high gear they went into hiding. We like fellow Jew crew members with cool stories! We went upstairs and dropped our stuff off in our room. Then went out to find the beach. We found it but by the time we got there it was dark (aka 9:45 pm - the sun sets pretty late here) so we made our way back up toward the main drag of Nerja and had some dinner then went back to the hostel then went to sleep.