Last Sunday, Elisa, Paula, Orla and I decided to take advantage of the good weather and go for a hike. (Speaking of, the weather in Granada is so strange! The week before it was
cold every day for a week (it would dip to 12º in the mornings and 14-15º in the afternoons), while last week it was
hot (26-28º in the afternoons). The mother of the two boys I tutor joked that it's either really cold or really hot, never in between.) It was pretty hot out that day, maybe 28-30º, but the heat wasn't unbearable.
We originally wanted to go up to Beas de Granada, a small village in the north-east of Granada and trek down the 16km. (We found a trekking website that gives a detailed explanation of the route to take). Unfortunately it was a Sunday, and there were no buses running on a Sunday (much like how half the city shuts down, because, well that's Spain for you). Instead we decided to trek up (do the reverse of the detailed route) maybe halfway and then come back down again. The route starts past the Alhambra and the cemetery of the Alhambra, so we walked the 2km from the city center to there.
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| Walking up to the Alhambra |
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| Pretty trees from north of the Alhambra |
We found the start of the path easily, marked by the red clay and olive groves. Pretty sight, isn't it? The place we were walking through was called the
Dehesa del Generalife (Generalife Pasture). The
Generalife was the summer palace of the Nasrid kings, and along with the
Alhambra, is a
UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Dehesa del Generalife though is much further up north from the Generalife, and is open to the public. During the Nasrid rein from 1232-1492, the Dehesa del Generalife was a rest place for the rulers residing in the Alhambra (the Nasrids were the last Muslim dynasty in Spain and prominently ruled in Granada).
This place below is called
El Aljibe de la Lluvia and was a reservoir. It supposedly collected rain water which was used for the palaces. (
Aljibe means tank and
lluvia means rain).
At this point we knew where we were in the
Dehesa, since there were several maps at various points of the trail, but we didn't know where to go to follow the route we got from the website. In the end, we decided to just stay on the path, and make our own trail.
We had a great view of Granada and the surrounding mountains. I forgot to take a picture, but in the bottom part of these mountains (below), there were several holes which we later realized where probably caves where gypsies live.
We kept walking upwards following the path (and the people) and stumbled upon this
Reloj del Sol (sundial).
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| Okay, my face is particularly red here for some reason, but I didn't actually get sunburnt at all. |
We continued walking and we finally saw the marker we were looking for and realized we were on the right path! We had an amazing view from here though, and probably walked about 4km, so we decided to stop here, and tackle the rest of the trail another time. It was a bit foggy/cloudy so we didn't get the best view of the Sierra Nevadas. Still a breathtaking sight, nevertheless.
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| Elisa, me, Paula, Orla |
On our way back to the city center, we stopped by the
Cementerio de San Jose. If I remember correctly, it's the second oldest cemetery in Spain. It was a really nice cemetery, most of the patios were well taken care of and adorned with flowers. At the entrance, they have a service where you can hire a guy and a ladder, which we saw several families do, since their crypt was one of the ones on top. The guy would walk with them to the crypt, climb the ladder, and place the flowers outside the crypt.
It was a good day to go for a hike, and we hope to do the "real" hike soon. Walking down from Beas de Granada is supposed to offer one of the best views of the Sierra Nevadas, and if you go as winter nears, you can supposedly see snow on the peaks of the mountains.
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