Day 3: Granada to Cordova (via Antequera) (June 14)

We skipped our hotel's breakfast and instead popped into one of the several local pastelerias, Bernina, for tea, toast (to perfection), and fresh orange juice for 3,50 E each before starting on Rick Steves' walking tour of the Old Town of Granada (the area in which we were staying).  It was all very interesting, but we were blown away in particular by the Granada Cathedral.  While impressive from the outside, (I'm looking for a word here to describe the inside and Rachel just suggested "real big" - love her to death, but missing Julia's input when blogging), let's say, awe-inspiring, from the inside.  We got the audio guide but we didn't have time for the narrator's "real slow" descriptions.  This cathedral was built on top of the site of the old mosque and took almost 300 years to complete, so several different architectural styles coexist. 

Just outside the Cathedral, a store selling bulk teas caught Rachel's eye and she found the Embrujo de Granada that she had at the Alhambra the day before and bought some to bring home.  We finished off the tour, said goodbye to Granada, and drove off to our next stop, Cordoba. We decided to stop for lunch along the way so Rachel did a little research and guided us to Antequera, a town that Lonely Planet says is often referred to as the "Florence of Andalucia."  It has kept its charm by being a little off the beaten path, but the extra time was worth the detour.  On the way into town, we stopped at the Dolmens outside of town.  We had no idea what we were about to see really but then watched a 12-minute video about the construction of these burial chambers almost 5000 years ago detailing how prehistoric people of the Copper Age moved dozens of huge slabs from nearby mountains to build the chambers, requiring amazing feats of strength, determination, organization, community, and intellect. Now they are covered with dirt and beautiful wildflowers but you can still go inside and see their craftsmanship.

We continued into the town for a vegetarian tapas lunch at Arte de Tapas, which was delicious.  Two of our favorites were the goat cream cheese from Malaga and the lemon mousse.  We couldn't pass up the huge two-story grocery store across the street with a conveyor belt people-mover instead of an escalator.  Smart for carts.

Next stop Cordoba.  Our hotel was again down very small cobblestone streets.  I choose places to stay based on their location ratings on booking.com so while we are very well situated geographically, the driving is a little tricky. We dropped off our bags and the guy working the desk said he usually drives guests' cars to the lot for them.  I hesitated at first, worried about letting someone else drive my rental car, but Rachel and I agreed it was probably less risky to have him drive, even uninsured.  We walked back to the hotel via another grocery store with a cool bread dispenser and slicer for customers to use themselves and three different music stores (learned there was a conservatory nearby hence so many music stores).

We learned that people in Cordoba takes their patios very seriously - there is an annual contest for the best patio and a few of the past winners have opened up their patios for touring.  As we're in the process of rebuilding our deck, I thought it would be fun to take some inspiration from Spain.  These award-winning patios were all full of  lovely hanging pots of blooming flowers (mostly geraniums), floor to roof . The coolest thing we saw was a lemon tree trained to grow up the side of a wall and out along the adjoining walls, very thin but laden with lemons (no pic unfortunately).

A couple of guide-book recommended restaurants that we were excited to try were in the patio area section of town but they had few-to-no vegetarian options. We found instead a wonderful place on the river called Restaurante Amaltea that had a totally separate menu for vegetarians and had another delicious meal - this time muhummara and a veggie "burrito" with a yogurt sauce.  We should put together a guide book for how to eat vegetarian in Spain!  Again, we arrived before 8 and had to wait for the place to open.

After walking back to hotel, Rachel upped the workout ante from 7 minutes to a 45-minute Nike Training.  We moved our beds all the way to the walls and had just enough space in the room and the bathroom combined to do the program.  I kept hoping we were annoying our neighbors and would be asked to stop, but we made it all the way through the endurance workout without complaints (from outsiders at least).  I am not used to exercising at night or on a full stomach so I was glad when it was over and I could crawl my way out to the wonderful rooftop patio (just outside our 4th floor room - there are only two rooms on this floor plus an open honor bar and a wrap-around outside area with lovely seating).  I sat there long enough to recover before finally heading inside.

This is the rooftop patio during day

Lovely spot to sit post-workout at night