The first day of our trip was to Granada. We caught a short flight out of Madrid to Granada and checked into a cute little hotel called Hostal Rodri. The attendant at the front was wonderful in a peculiar way. When we walked in, he asked us to have a seat while he finished with another guest. This took 20 minutes. We were about to learn that little happens quickly in Spain. Once we checked in, he gave us a tourist map and decided to mark a few interesting areas. Let me rephrase, he marked every interesting restaurant, bar, tea house, site, street, and park. The map was incomprehensible by the time he was finished. When we found ourselves looking at it, we would ask, “was the star the good bar? Or maybe the square was the breakfast place?” It was a map without a legend.
We decided to walk down a street teeming with places to eat called Calle Virgen del Rosario and search for a place to have lunch. It was packed, and you could not find a table at all. Masking was mixed, but it was outside, and it felt ok. After scouting out the location and realizing we will likely not find a table any time soon, we found ourselves in Plaza de Carlos Cano.
We quickly started realizing that we were not prepared for lunching like the Spaniards. There was not a table to be found in the entire plaza, and the idea of a host was non-existent. After deducing we needed to grab the attention of a speedy waiter trained to not make eye contact with patrons, we finally got a table in the plaza at Restaurant 4u.
It was chilly in the plaza, but I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was sitting in a country I had never visited, enjoying a drink and new food. But, damn it, I missed this. Traveling is so important to me. It is truly one of the most valuable things in my life, and missing that really did hurt me during COVID. I count myself quite lucky that I am this far into the pandemic and continue to have my health and my loved ones, so not traveling was a small cost, no matter how much it pained me to forgo it.
We ordered our first plate of cured pork and maybe the last vegetable dish of the trip. Spain does not love vegetables. Every table around us was ordering a breaded dish we later learned was flamenquín. It looked delicious, but we skipped it.
After lunch, we continued to explore Granada and took a small nap to manage jet lag. Afterward, we decided to roam the streets a bit more and grabbed a table at a place called La Vinoteca for a glass of wine and our first tortilla Espanol (potatoes and egg omelet). Spain is famous for its tapas, and we were told Granada is the last place in the country where they still come free with a drink. I don’t know if this is true, but there is a lot of complimentary food in this town.
We made our way back to Calle Virgen del Rosario and got a table at Rosario Varela for dinner. Even at 9:00 PM is still felt early for Spain, but we were hungry and tired. We gorged ourselves on cheese, anchovies, and sardines roasted with a torch table side. It was a lovely end to our first day in Spain.
Next: Spain Day 2 – Alhambra
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