Highlights of Andalucia

We're back in London! After an easy plane ride to the London Stansted Airport, but a hectic frustrating bus ride into the City of London, we finally arrived at Don's place last night around 2:30pm... we arrived at the airport at 11:15pm... so it took us an insane 3 hours to get back (and the bus ride really is only 1 hour away!).

Here's our tip from the night:

• Do not purchase your bus ticket with Ryan Air. They sell tickets for a bus company called Terravision, who only have two bays to fill buses, versus National Express who have about 8 bays! Plus Ryan Air sell you tickets that aren't cheaper than purchasing them on your own (even though they say they're cheaper).
• I could go on and on about how unorganized their ticketing system is but I won't (you can ask Trav for more details)... but if you're planning to fly into Stanstead one of these days, take National Express :)

Enough of the ranting, here are some of our highlights of Granada and Sevilla...

Paella & Sangria & the Albayzin
In Granada, there was an area called the Albayzin, and it was here we found the best place to have Sangria. We lucked out on the place actually... it was siesta time (between 2pm and 5pm), and there weren't many restaurants that were open. We found one in Plaza Larga, and enjoyed the yummy sangria!

Then close by, we went to a restaurant that served the best paella! The restaurant was cute and had really great decor (islamic blue and white tiles). The paella is for two people, served with these huge prawns, lots of clams, calamari, mussels and pork mini spareribs. It was really delicious! (I had some in Seville, and it wasn't as good)
This is the view from the Alhambra overlooking the Albayzin area. The Albayzin was my favourite area in Granada.

The Search for Chocolate con Churros
After reading the Lonely Planet Guide for the Andalucia, it raves about how the locals have chocolate con churros (hot chocolate with churros) for breakfast each morning (that or coffee and tostades (toast)). So, shouldn't be that hard to find then, right? Ha!

The hunt started in Granada: we had taken a bus from the train station into town and Trav had noticed a cafe with the sign, "Chocolate con Churros", we thought we'd find our way to the hostel first, then venture out for our breakfast. Well, we searched every little cafe around the hostel area for these 'tasty little snacks', but we came up empty handed, it was like people didn't know what we were talking about. So, we decided to head back to the same cafe that Trav had noticed at the start of the day, and you know what, it's just a tourist trap... they didn't have any, but the sign!?!

Anyway, so no luck in Granada. We did finally find some in Sevilla! We had walked from our hotel toward city centre, and thanks to Casa Felix, we had our fair share of what the hype was all about... and boy oh boy did we have our fair share... I think enough to make us sick of it!

Trav ordered "Churros para dos", meaning he'd like Churros for two people. I think we ended up with a plate of churros for like 10 people, it was HUGE! But we'll admit, it was very very good... and worth the hunt! The churros are plain, but fresh (basically, fried dough), not like the type you get at GM Place where they're stale, covered with sugar and cinnamon. The hot chocolate is very sweet, so when you dip the churros into the hot chocolate, you have a perfect mix!!


My tip for ordering cappuccino's in Sevilla:

• Some cafe's in Sevilla make cappuccino's with whipped cream, instead of steamed milk... so if you can, try and ask how they make it (speaking in Spanish is very beneficial in these cases, there were so many times we got the whipping cream version... ay yah yai... the waistline... !)
  

Sorry, a loooong post, but hope you've enjoyed our stories so far! Ta ta for now, we're going to head out in rainy London.