Granada: Land of Tapas

Perhaps the most anticipated part of our trip was Granada, famously known for its FREE tapas. Yep, these bars will bring you food for free when you order a drink. Keep drinking, keep eating and wonder why the rest of the world can't adopt this lifestyle. 

Our Two Day Tapas Tour of Granada
1. La Gran Taberna- This traditional tapas bar gave us each a tortilla tapa with our beer. Since this was our first free tapas experience we were thrilled to be handed food without charge and weren't totally sure what to expect. We were happy with the small plates of bready eggy goodness and even happier with the bottle of Alhambra beer I ordered. Spanish beer isn't overly exciting, but that was the best beer of our trip. 
2. Bodega Castana- Plan on standing in this bar but it's worth it for the sangria and paella. I love paella tapas because, really, how can you go wrong with paella? I wanted to order a second sangria just to have more paella, but we had too many places to stop at. 

3. Poe- A British couple started Poe after visiting Granada and refusing to leave. This bar offers nine tapas to pick from, one free with every drink or 1.50 euros for a tapa without a drink. The menu was a Spanish-English fusion of wonderful pub food. We stopped at Poe for dinner and ended up trying almost the entire menu. Even with buying tapas, it made for a pretty cheap and extremely delicious dinner!
4. Bar Los Diamantes- This was the only tapas bar we were disappointed by. We found stellar reviews online and looked forward to having some seafood, but the complimentary fried anchovies were just OK and the grilled shrimp we paid too much for came with the heads still on (EW!). 
5. Avila Tapas- This was our dinner stop on our second day. Although the inside was nothing special, the tapas made up for it! Like Poe this was a choose your free tapa bar with a small price for additional tapas. We just kept ordering because the tapas were so cheap and so good. 

Alhambra
OK so we didn't just eat tapas the entire time we stayed in Granada. The number one attraction Granada has to offer is the Alhambra, an incredible palace filled with Roman, Islamic, and Renaissance influence. We purchased our Alhambra tickets in advance for 15 euros each and showed up at 8:30 when the gates open. The architecture and gardens cover such a large area, we spent 3 and a half hours admiring the palace. 

Arab Baths
Granada has several options for Arab baths. We chose the Al-Haram spa with an hour in the baths and a 30 minute massage. Although we aren't usually spa people, we really enjoyed bouncing from the cold to warm to hot baths and felt like the bath and massage combination for 40 euros was a great way to spend some time in between tapas. We really liked that we were the only 2 people enjoying the baths during our time there.