Alhambra Palace in Granada

The Alhambra is Spain's most visited tourist attraction with over
two million annual visitors. The city of Granada is also fabulous
so time permitting don't be in too much of a rush to leave the
place. A pleasant surprise to many is that tapas are free with
drinks in the city's bars.



www.spanish-fiestas.com

Would love to visit the Alhambra again. In 1966, my only visit, there was major re-building going on and have always wondered how it looks now.

I'm glad to see that the OLD custom of free tapas still exist here. Tourism has wrecked this elsewhere in Spain, mainly caused by people using the practice as a free meal, so now they have to pay for them!

My happy memory of Granada is of a bar, where the tables were made from the top of casks. Taps were fitted around the outside edge and you helped yourself to glasses of tinto, chalking your drinks on the metal band. At the end of your visit a tally was taken and you paid the barman. Fantastic idea! So reliant on honesty. As we left, after leaving a small gratuity, we parted with the sound of a large cowbell being rung and a cry of 'gracias senor'....... Put the sh-- up us, I can tell you!!

That reminds me of a small wine cellar in Malaga where we had gone to see the Christmas lights.

Snuggled down below street level the high bar had a blackboard type work surface and you stood tightly packed amongst all the others tasting the differing sherries from the oak casts. As they gave you a drink they would put a chalk mark on the work surface near where you stood and like you the bill was paid when you were about to leave.

Another fantastic stop was when we were en route to Seville and were going through the mountains. There the rest area had a big room where café and tapas were taken while you looked up at all the jamón hanging above your heads. The aroma in there was fantastic!

These old cellar bars had a real down-to-earth, working class atmosphere. One bar had hundreds of bottles stacked on their sides along a full wall and they were thick with dust and covered in cobwebs. Lord only knows how long they had been there and it wouldn't surprise me if they were still there today! Your bocadillo y jamon was made from the hanging hams from over your head, well smoked by the cigar puffing locals, no doubt! If you couldn't get a place standing at the bar a comfortable? wooden bench ran along the opposite wall for your convenience, with bullfighting billposters above. When I lived with a Spanish family, the wine was obtained from a corner grocers, straight from the keg into an empty Casera bottle. It cost peanuts!