Day 2: Granada - The Albaycin

The second day in Granada we decided to walk around a little bit through the Albaycin neighborhood. This district of Granada lies to the side of the Alhambra. It consists of very narrow winding streets with nearly every side wall filled with graffiti. The neighborhood also has a moorish medievil past feel with some original buildings and archways throughout the district. 

Heading up into the Albaycin

 We stopped on the way up to check out an old Arab bath from the 11th century called "el Bañuelo" These baths were used by the muslims during their reign of granada.  There were four chambers; a changing room, a cool room, hot room and a steam room. the Steam room had hollow floors that they would pump steam into from the boiler room to heat the floors. The ceilings had octogonal and star shaped light holes to allow natural light to enter into the baths. 

Dome of main room 

After we made our way up the steep narrow streets of the Albaycin. One of the most famous spots in this small district is the Balcony of Saint Nicholas. We made our way there to see great views of the Alhambra. The pictures below hardly do the spot justice. It was a hazy day which made it difficult to capture how pretty the scenery was. 

The Alhambra on our way into the Albaycin

Narrow windy streets with Alhambra in Background

Balcony of Saint Nicholas

 Another interesting aspect of the Albaycin is the sheer amount of graffiti it contains. Almost every piece of wall is spray painted. Most of it is nonsensical writings, but there also is a lot of really good art. You could spend all day walking through the neighborhood looking at the graffiti.

Afterwords we headed across town on the other side of the Alhambra and city to where I lived when I studied abroad my sophomore year of college. Ingy and I went to my old building to look around the area where I spent most of my time. After we headed over to see the Park of Federico Garcia Lorca, a famous Andalusian Poet who lived his entire life in Granada. On the way back to our place we found a sweet Chinese   resturant to eat at that was really cheap. The walls had the strangest mural of panda bears. The food was plentiful and cheap. It was so good we ate there again the following night. 

Park of Federico Garcia Lorca

Panda Mural

Weird