Hola Valencia

Yes, visiting the Alhambra was a remarkable experience. But on the drive home to Valencia, I prodded Jürgen to name his number one highlight from Granada. It was the same as mine: THE TAPAS.

Friends had told us that we’d be amazed by the tapas. “You won’t have to eat dinner”. But no amount of advance knowledge could prepare us for tapeando in Granada. At the first pub, we ordered two beers. We got two beers and a huge plate overflowing with food. A salad, two montaditos, and a crazy amount of potato chips. Serously, check it out. I was troubled — it was simply not possible that this amount of food was free. When I asked for the bill, it was with a heavy feeling in my heart; perhaps I had misunderstood.

BUT IT WAS FREE. It was free, my God, all that food for free. Jürgen and I floated out of the bar and, hand in hand, went skipping down the street to the next one, singing the glories of Granada. It was like Christmas, but much, much better. The first bar wasn’t a fluke. At pub after pub, we got free plates of food. Sometimes montaditos, sometimes chicken skewers, sometimes little hamburgers. Sometimes you’d get to choose. The flautas mexicanas, please! Sometimes it was fancy — grilled Camembert on rye toast. Once they set down navajas in front of me and I, made brave by the considerable amount of alcohol flowing through my veins, slurped them down like a gnarled Galician fisherman.

We went to probably 3929 tapas bars during our 4-day stay, so it’s impossible to list them all. Here, though, were some of our favorites:
El Labrador – Rustic, filled with young locals; you can choose your tapas.

De Cuadro – Hipper place, modern furnishing; you can also choose from a large menu of interesting tapas

La Bella y la Bestia – Alongside the river Duerro, this is where we got the outrageous plate full of tapas I linked a picture to, above. A cool little bar.

La Antigualla – Very popular with young foreigners; there were about twenty collegiate Americans there. I pretended to be German. Oh my God, do we, like, totally talk like that now, like, all the time? We counted, like, literally 8 “likes” out of one kid’s mouth in, like, 20 seconds. I’ve been too long away from my homeland. But the tapas were great, here! Like totally!

La Riviera – Again, you get to choose your tapas here; a nice, typical Spanish bar with a mix of locals & foreigners, in a great location

Calle Navas – The entire street is filled with bars and, on a Friday or Saturday night, good luck squeezing into one of them!