Day 5 Wednesday, March 6th: "The Rain in Spain falls mainly in the Plain"

This is our first travel day as we pick up a Budget rental car in Sevilla and make our way to Granada. It is an overcast day as we look outside and some amount of wind. The forecast for Sevilla and Granada is periods of rain. Apparently it is around a 2 hour 45 minute drive to Granada. Our pick up time for the rental car is 13:00.

Down for our last buffet breakfast and we are in no rush. Very satisfying and yummy start to the day and you can eat as much as you want. Only challenge was getting to the rare watermelon slices before   the other vultures take it all. We are going to miss these breakfasts. Lana checked us out and we discovered later we used 240,000 Marriott points for this free stay! Totally worth it though as it was a real treat and great way to start our holiday.

For our last few hours in this area we decided to make the very short walk to the General Archives of the Indies. We had walked past this gigantic building many times and heard about it on our free walking tour a couple of days ago. Plus, it has free admission. We can spend at least an hour there before getting back to the hotel grabbing our luggage and then a taxi.

We both enjoyed our time at the General Archives.

• built in the 1500s
• originally was the Merchant's Exchange Building and authorized for all trade with the Americas
• called the "Indies" as Columbus had thought he had found India from the other direction
• used Cuban mahogany wood
• became the official archives for all the business with the Americas in 1785
• 43,000 files and over 80 million pages of documents housed here
• UNESCO World Heritage site
• possess an integrated computer system and docs can be accessed from anywhere in the world
• houses many temporary exhibitions like the two we visited
• all the exhibits are on the second floor
• room with a looped movie providing excellent historical background to the archives and the trade with the Americas - the movie had english subtitles
• highly recommended if you are in Sevilla

Building of the General Archives of the Indies. 

Randy has a fascination with old paper documents and I was in my realm looking at these documents of which some are more than 500 years old! I don't read Spanish though. 

Musical composition. 

Original picture of old Sevilla and a super old sword. 

Very old bookkeeping records. 

The one exhibit room with the old documents, art works and statutes. 

On the other side of the floor was the Travelling Food exhibit. More hands on here. Learned so much of how the Spanish learned from the Filipinas and vice versa. Foods that were not available in Spain. 

Examples of produce only available in the Americas until the Spaniards brought them to the Old World: squashes, corn, peppers and jams. 

Lana took some photos of some traditional Spanish recipes: 

Traditional Escabeche

Roasted Cod

After our time at the Archives we did not have time to go find some lunch. Lana had a brilliant idea of just going to 100 Montaditos to pick up some sandwiches. We had walked by here many times and there were people eating there. We picked out four montaditos and a bag of potato chips for a total cost of 5 Euro! We will eat these in the car during our trip to Granada. 

100 Montaditos Menu. Yes, there is a list of 100 montaditos!

Walked back to the hotel, checked out and the bellhop ordered us a taxi. Uneventful ride to the main train station at Santa Justa except for the fact we could not locate the Budget Rental Car. We tried the other side of the train station and it was there. Problem though is we need to haul our luggage into the train station as that is where the paper work is done if you are not a Privileged Customer. I am the designated driver. Eventually the paper work was completed and we hauled our luggage back out to the parking lot, but the vehicle was way too large! I went back inside to the counter to get a trade down to a smaller vehicle. We don't like the larger vehicles and I was told by two of the Airbnb hosts that the parking spots were pretty tight.

We have our Garmin GPS unit for navigating the roads and we had purchased a Spain/Portugal SIM card. I had saved a number of Spanish destinations. Took a while but the maps finally loaded and off we drove. The plan was to text our Airbnb host 30 minutes before we were to arrive.


On the long drive from Sevilla to Granada:

• we had three (3) torrential downpours while enroute with heavy winds so the rain was crashing all around us inclusive of the windshield. The wipers could not keep up.
• most of the towns we came across homes were painted white with the same light red coloured tiled roofs
• there are a lot of olive trees in this area! 
• speed limit on the main freeway was 120 kms and the majority of drivers stay within the speed limit. Near towns the speed limit can go to 100 or 80.
• our rental car moves pretty good and has six gears   :-)
• it took us forever to figure out how to disengage the parking brake button and this happened more than once

Due to the fact I hardly got any sleep last night I was really battling to stay awake after about an hour of driving. Lana convinced me to pull over at a gas station/rest stop and try to nap. We both pushed the seats back and I closed my eyes but no nap for about 30 minutes. I was more rested though. Back on the freeway and then used the GPS to find the meeting spot. Problem was the meeting spot was a parking lot and not the Airbnb address. That got figured out although our host Manuel was not responding to our texts. 

We did meet up with Javier near the parking garage and he escorted us by walking towards the parking entrance. The angle to get into the entrance was unbelievable! Good that I have some driving skill otherwise this car would have been scratched big time. To get into his tiny parking spot, I got out and Javier parked the vehicle! Yeh! We followed him to the actual apartment and about three minutes later we were at the front door. Showed to his apartment 2A and confirmed wifi information, keys, parking logistics and provided ideas on local restaurants and the best way to get to Alhambra tomorrow. It is now about 17:15 when he departs. It begins to rain shortly afterwards.

Our kitchen area - looks pretty new and is very white. Very efficiently laid out says Lana!!

The cooktop and oven are hidden until you want to cook. 

Living room area

Tiles in the bathroom

Amazing we know, but the restaurants Javier recommended do not open until 20:00. Yes, we are in Spain and they dine later. I update our blog and Lana relaxes on the couch. It is 10 degrees here and that is cold. We venture onto the street to a local supermarket and find a bakery on the way. Yup, it is too irresistible to stop and not go in? The bakery is La Concordia Heladeria Pasteleria Confiteria and the shop girl speaks english. Well, we need some pastries for breakfast the next two mornings and maybe a dessert? The bill for four pastries was around 7 Euros. We can't wait to eat these pastries. We have not had any of these treats before.

This dessert (Guajado de Carnaval) is eaten after a special religious holiday and is a Granada specialty. 

We find the supermarket and purchase a large bottle of water and discover they don't sell any fruit in this store. Next door they have a special smaller store that sells fruit. Some bananas and apples will be sufficient. 

Back to the apartment to get changed and then use Google Maps app to find the restaurant which is only about 4 minutes on foot. Our host indicated Taberna Gastronomica Chantarela would be a good place for tapas. The difference though from Sevilla is you receive a free tapa with your order of alcohol and you won't know the tapas dish. Totally different approach. We think this is a great idea, but have no idea what the cost is for each drink as we won't be paying for each tapas dish. Not too busy when we arrive right after 20:00, but before 21:00 the place is packed. We try to communicate to the bartender and the server, but nobody speaks english. It ends up working out as it always does and Lana used one of translation apps to communicate with the bartender. We choose to eat at the bar counter as it is more intimate and we can see the bartender at work.   

Facade of Taberna Chantarela. 

After our order of a glass of sweet white wine and a glass of sweet sherry (Manzanilla) we receive this tapa. We love them and they are much larger than the tapas dishes mainly found in Sevilla. This tapa is on a larger piece of bread with a piece of fried chicken breast wrapped in ham, crispy onions, a slice of incredible goat cheese and a tomato jam on top. Yummy! Lana says definitely a fork and knifer--not something to just pick up and eat.

Our second tapa dish as we both order a second drink. Eventually using Google Translate we find out the dish is eggplant stuffed with pork with béchamel sauce with some kind of cheese on top. Yup, another huge hit. 

I asked for a glass of sweeter white wine and this is the bottle. I had two glasses. I will look for this wine varietal in the local stores.  

This is a favourite red wine drink in Andalucia. Tinto de Verano. It is Lana's order as she had seen people drinking this in Sevilla. It is one part red wine and one part soda/carbonated drink. We will be drinking more of this and maybe trying to make some in Vancouver. 

We are there for close to an hour sitting at the bar, eating awesome tapas and drinking wines that are new to us. Nobody speaks english, but we manage. The most shocking part is the total price was 11.60 Euros! Each drink was around 3 Euros and that includes a tapas which was all we needed for a dinner! The food was delicious and the experience memorable. 

10,500 Steps and 7.7 kms and 14 floors are our stats for today.