Holiday Adventures Part 7 – Granada and Barcelona

Our next stop was Granada, Spain. The big tourist attraction in Granada is the Alhambra, a huge Moorish palace/fortress from the fourteenth century. It has fabulous Islamic architecture.
Horseshoe-shaped arches are very typical in Moorish architecture, as are geometric patterns.
The Alhambra also has some nice gardens and fountains.
The top of the castle gives a good view of the city of Granada.
After Granada, we set out for a couple days in Barcelona. Although Barcelona is in Spain, it is in the region of Catalonia, and a different language (Catalan) is spoken. Catalan sounds like a hybrid of Spanish and French.

Barcelona has a beautiful old Gothic cathedral:
And a modern cathedral called the Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) that is not yet completed. It was started in the 1880s, and construction should be finished in about 50 more years.
Our favorite thing in Barcelona was the big market downtown. There were so many tasty treats to choose from!

Of course there was fresh produce, arranged in very attractive pyramids:
We could also buy suckling pigs:
Or freshly skinned rabbits:
The lobsters and prawns were trying to walk off the tables:
There were black truffles for sale, for the bargain price of 200 Euros per kilogram:
The sheep heads looked tasty (?) (How do you cook a sheep head???):
I have no idea what these are. It’s probably best that I don’t know.
With all those tempting choices, we stuck with dried fruit. It’s hard to go wrong with dates and figs.
January 3 was our last day in Spain. In the evening, we drove on to our next country…