Granada:Spain,Places,Photos

7.18.2014 Granada, Spain

Granada is the tapas city. Named after the pomegranates (Granada in Spanish means Pomegranates), this city would serve your eating out for free if you pay your bill for any drink i.e wine/beer/coke/mango shake/just anything.For previous posts on Spain,click here


Drinking pure Spring water from just about anywhere


The story says that, Once upon a time a king of Spain was travelling around and he arrived in a bar very close to the city. That day was very windy day, so all the sand was entering inside the bar. So when the king ordered the wine, the waiter discovered that all the sand was coming inside the bar so he decided to serve one dish of ham on top of the wine glass to prevent the sand from going in the glass and also to not make it look awkward while serving. And when it arrived in front of the king, the king asked why it is the way it is, as he had asked for just the wine. And the waiter out of courtesy said "His majesty, this is the Tapa" (Tapa is Spanish means on Top) an offer from my bar because you are the king. So the king drank the wine and eats the ham. Of course he was delighted because he was very happy with the free food. All the people who were travelling with the king discovered that it was a very very nice area. So they always returned to this area asking for the tapa as offered to the king. After that, all the waiters from Granada, started to offer customers dishes (tapas) along with the drink.


This then started , and is still followed in Granada where along with your drink you get a free tapa which can be any small serving of a dish usually potatoes or meat to go along with.

Spain has high quality of water from the natural Springs of the mountains. So in Granada, wherever you drink water from, the water is pure. When thirsty,drink the water directly from Taps/Fountains and and that’s not unusual.In fact,that is done by everyone.

Granada and Muslim Influence


Al hamra palace is a fortress from the 9th century. The Muslim dynasty associated with it is al - hamar.Al - hamar was the first king of this dynasty and that’s how Al hamra got its name. The story of Granada started in 711 when a few commandants entered the Spanish territory and started to conquer areas from Spain. In 11 years, i.e in 722,they had the first battle in the history of Al hamra inside of Spain .This battle was between the Muslims and the Catholics. The Catholics were a small army of no more than 50 people so when the Muslims arrived to the north of Spain, the Muslim came to know about these 50 people inside of a cave, but these 50 people defeated the big Muslim army because the location of their hideout helped this small army. So this was the beginning of the Reconquista .Reconquista is the beginning of the era where the spied catholic people started to reconquer all the Spanish area. After which there were more fights in Europe but the Muslims lost the wars. However when Umayyads were defeated in one war, one Umayyad survived. He escaped and went to the coast and took a boat and sailed all the Mediterranean Sea and arrived in the coast of Granada. He arrived in 755,in Al Munegar.


Al Munegar is the first place in Granada, where he arrived from munegar to Antequerra.In Antequerra he was self-proclaimed mir.Mir is the political leader of the muslim but not the religious leader.So the muslims jewish and Christians were living together without any problem because the relationship between them were gud relationship.in 1031,as the caliphate was turning into kingdom ,these kingdoms started becoming not friends and so the Muslim kingdoms were fighting with Christians. Because the Christians coming from the north started reconquering the area starting 1031,because the Muslim kingdom didn’t have money to try to defend all the cities.In 1236,was the first king of Granada arrived to speak with Ferdinand 3 and they made an agreement and the Muslim king told ferdinand 3 – I will help you to defeat my neighborhood and help you defeat all the kingdoms but you are not allowed entry in my kingdom – i.e Granada. You have to let me in my kingdom and every yearI will pay you some amount of money.They had a deal with this and king Ferdinand 3 said yes. He thought it was a good idea for the king because he got a new army, with the help of Muslims. So the most important year are the last 200 year in granada, when all the Christian kingdom were trying to fight the control on the spain. Isabella signed a contract in 1942,with the king of Granada,and as per the agreement; all the Muslims were allowed to keep their religion, and they are free to stay inside of granada, but the problem with this was that Ferdinand 3 didn’t want this because all the population in granada was reconverted to Catholic. He didn't respect the Muslim tradition or the Jewish tradition.


This created  a new civil war.A civil war where all the muslims living in Granada went to al bukharas. Al bukharas in the small village inside of the mountains. The government send the army to the al bukhara to try to reconquer the area for them.So at the time the christians entered Al Bukharas and killed everyone in al bukhara and this was end of muslim story in granada area.But Granada has 900 years of muslim influence due to various factors and hence you will see the Muslim influence in the narrow street and the architecture everywhere in Granada.

Sacremonte: Digging Your Own Cave

Sacremonte is a neighbourhood in Granada,a popular tourist attraction where on the Sacremonte Hill you can find the White Wishes Cave.Most of the population in this area now is the hippy population and they live in the cave.What they used to do before was,they would dig the cave,paint it as their home and voila,that was their home.This way their own homes was very very cheap and would keep them warm in winters and cold in Summers.But now it is forbidden to dig these caves,so every time hippies now try to dig,the city counsel arrive and destroy.But the start digging their caves again.

Al Hambra Palace And Generalife


The Alhambra was a palace, a citadel, fortress, and the home of the Nasrid sultans, high government officials, servants of the court and elite soldiers (from the 13th to the 14th century). Today, the monument is divided into four main areas: the Palaces, the military zone or Alcazaba, the city or Medina and the agricultural estate of the Generalife. All of these areas are surrounded by woods, gardens and orchards.


3 comments

  1. Lovely post… fun fact about Spanish Tapas!

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  2. @Chaitali Patel:Thanks Chaitali.The tapa here is yum,you must try whenever in Spain

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  3. Granada was definitely a higlight on my trip too... Though I didn't book tickets to Alhambra in advance, and when I got there they were are sold out, so I definitely must be going back. My highlight in Albaicin was the guitar artists strolling around playing and singing Flamenco. That was just so incredible!

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