If you’re an architect you might have heard of a very special palace called Grenada well known for its architecture and most importantly, beautiful gardens. Well, we stayed in the town where it’s located. My parents are both architects and have heard of the tales describing its garden’s otherworldly beauty, so this place was a must-go on our trip. The palace is located on a mountain and overlooks the whole town below it. Luckily for us, we got to stay at a place with an amazing view pointing directly at it. Things were looking great, but as the saying goes, what goes up must go down. As we were walking to our hotel, we noticed that from where we were standing onward, the road was cobbled. This made it nearly impossible to go any further with our suitcases, so we asked a taxi driver if he would drive us the rest of the way but then the unimaginable happened. He lied to us. The taxi driver claimed that the road was too narrow and would be impossible for a car to fit through and with that he continued to smoke his cigar, leaving us with no choice but to slowly make our way down the cobbled, uneven streets for the next 30 minutes. It was horrible. One of the suitcases was damaged and had to be carried the whole way let alone the rest of us having to do the same with the countless stairs and dips in the uneven road, let alone all of the mosquitos which were eating us alive. To rub salt in the wound, when we were descending, we saw cars drive by. That dirty liar.
Eventually, we managed to reach our hotel and drop our luggage off. Surely this day couldn’t get any worse, right? Well, I was wrong, It could get worse. We walked down to an atmospheric street (with my new favorite cobbled stones) and decided on having Moroccan food for dinner. This town was once owned by a huge empire, explaining the type of food you can find here. We picked this specific restaurant because it seemed cheap, at least that is what the posters outside claimed. Unknown to us, this place had a very low rating and would scam many people along with providing the customers with little to no service. One small dish cost more than $20 which is crazy for Spain! They refused a refund and left us no choice but to go home defeated. Luckily, the next day would be when we explore Grenada. Sadly, I am running out of time so that might have to be a story for another time. For now, the lesson learned is, never to trust the Spanish.
***For those wondering, Grenada is famous not only for its beauty but because of its ingenious cooling system. If you walk around Grenada it is easy to spot the water channels anywhere, but how is this possible? It is 40c outside and somehow they can afford all of this water! In reality, they designed the water channels to be shallow and thin, making it harder for it to evaporate. And that about sums it up!
8/9/23