T left at 4AM back to NYC on Friday. He made it safely and relatively uneventfully to New Jersey. Yay!

The kids and I left Sevilla around 9AM. I squeezed the car out of the garage (a few tries 😉 and we were on our way! But we did not go straight to Granada, because… Why make it easy on myself and just take the highway and arrive to Granada three hours later with no trouble? But no, Daria talking here so we have to milk everything out of this trip. My reasoning… We are in Spain after all. We have the whole day, a full tank, so why not go explore the “white village route” and the Grazalema national park?

Day 1: a long drive to Granada via white village route and Grazalema National park. We first stopped at Zahara de la Sierra village, explored the village, checked out the views and had coffee and milkshakes. We then made our way to the actual village of Grazalema located in the Grazalema natural park. Another tiny, beautiful, whitewashed village. The drive between Zahara and Grazalema villages was about 40 minutes doing 30 miles per hour on narrow mountain roads (asphalt, thank God, and no potholes). The views were breathtaking as we climbed higher and higher yet I have felt anxious. For a long tie we were the only car on that road and I started having thoughts like, what if we break down? Who will find us? How fast can we get help? Ugh, even thinking about that possibility it makes me nervous. Finally, we arrived at Grazalema village, I had a cold coke, and exhaled.

I then feel empowered, and excitedly text our Granada airbnb host: “we are almost there!” NOPE. I obviously didn’t heck the map or checked it incorrectly because Granada is two and a half hours way, still. So we buckle up and drive. The landscape changes, becomes more yellow and dry, again there are instances that we are the lonely car on the road and again I’m chastising myself with “this is what you wanted, wasn’t it?” The kids are tired and cranky, they are singing songs about butts and poop in the back seat, I am asking them to stop, then I’m yelling at them to stop. Then I threaten them to suspend ice cream for this whole trip. Then we arrive to Granada and enter the old town.

I shudder by seeing how bloody narrow the streets are, the car has sensors all over and is tweaking out on me, and it’s a rental so I am tweaking out with it and the kids are having the time of their lives in the back seat. With lots of maneuvering and swearing, we make it down the 4th(!) floor of a parking garage in Granada which is just as narrow as the streets. I congratulate myself and realize that my head is pounding.

We pile into our airbnb, turn on the air and it is barely seeping moist air. Not cold, moist. Learning from our Sevilla experience, it should take a while to get cold. Except it never does.

Granada airbnb received an unfavorable review from me. The place was not clean, had no air conditioning, no fan was provided, and the stove was not working. No clear instructions or recommendations in regards to places to visit, or eat, or get yoghurt. Couldn’t do laundry because I couldn’t find the washer in the apartment (apparently it is in a hidden location according to other airbnb reviews). At night I had to put water on kids’ faces so they could sleep. Anyway, we made it. The location was great: a 10 minute walk to La Alhambra and walking distance to any overlook or la Catedral. Back in November I was inspired by many favorable reviews and I guess we were not so lucky.

La Alhambra was a definite highlight of our stay in Granada (pictures above). After having taught about the Alhambra for so many years, I finally got to see it in person. The Red Fort is otherworldly. The walls of the Nasrid palace are so intricate, and the gardens were bursting with flowers. The views of Granada and Albaicín. I was a bit worried about the kids in terms of whether they’ll find it interesting but I should’t have. They played in the gardens, and I just sat there.

We spent about 3+ hours there and I could have stayed longer. Our time slot was at 8:30AM and boy was that a right decision. Mornings in Granada turned out to be deliciously cool but by 12PM it was creeping up to 40 degrees.

We went back to the airbnb, R collapsed in a heap and took for a nap, L was watching some cartoons so I had a chance to rest. In the evening we roamed around the old town, found a place to eat and visited Granada Cathedral.

Day 3. Beach trip to Nerja. The south coast of Spain is about one hour drive from Granada so I figured we’ll do a beach day. A brief Google search revealed plenty of beaches in Nerja and so we went. Stopped by Lidl in Nerja, picked up snacks and fruit. The beach was tiny so it was easy to watch the kids. Even R went into the water! I was impressed. Must be that blue water. After about 4 hours at the beach we went to a small village called Frigiliana to have a cold drink and have some ice cream. And then I scratched the car. I bloody put a scratch on our rental, trying to get into the garage in Granada.

Day 4: leaving Granada and driving to Córdoba. In the morning, we walked up to the Mirador San Nicolás (an observation spot) and saw La Alhambra from a different perspective. The walk took about 20 minutes and was arduous and uphill in the Albaicín neighborhood. I thought it was good for us to walk for a bit before sitting in the car for three hours.

At the time of this post, we made it to Córdoba with no trouble and we love our airbnb!