Michelle and I were the only people down there at this time, which was probably good - and maybe they don't allow co-mingled groups, I'm not sure. Oh, and we wore our swimsuits!
Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this experience since I wasn't sure where I would keep my camera down there and it involved a lot of wetness. We started off in a warm bath (it was like a small swimming pool) and then moved to a hot tub which was very hot and had hard jets that you were supposed to use to massage whatever parts of your body needed it. From there, we transitioned to a cold bath (another small pool)...we didn't last very long in this one and at this point, I kind of wished we'd stayed in the hot one longer!! Then, we got to sit in a steam room for a while. I LOVE steam rooms. I like to be hot and I love to sweat. From there, we went into the ice room where there was tons of ice (think little, like sonic) coming out of a machine. We were supposed to scoop the ice by the handful and rub our entire body down with it. This actually felt really good after sitting in the steam room and was quite refreshing. It was also supposed to exfoliate the skin. That was the end of our treatment, but then we got to go sit in a quiet, dark room and they had tea for us to sip on while we relaxed a while longer.
Such a cool, relaxing experience! There's a place in Dallas that sounds similar to this except you have to go naked and parts of it sound a bit sketch (some normal people rave about it though!). I don't think I'm quite ready for that, but there are days when I'm tempted!!
Late afternoon, we left the hotel to explore a bit more of Granada and eat dinner. We spent some time walking along the river and into some shops. We ventured into the Albaicin neighborhood and explored there just a little more since I loved it so much the first night. I also took us to another convent to get more cookies from the nuns! I think I failed to mention that when we did this in Madrid, I promptly left the cookies on the ski-lift thing we rode over the park there. So we each only had 1 cookie. We needed to remedy that situation!
For dinner, we went to Bodegas Casteneda and had a great tapas experience. It was a very lively restaurant and there were very few tables and no chairs. People just stood along the bar or a few high-tops to eat. We tried their house wine which was vermouth and other drinks mixed together. This was our 2nd try at vermouth and although this was better than the straight vermouth we had in Madrid, we decided we didn't need to try it a 3rd time. The tapas were amazing! We split some delicious croquettes, salmon & avocado with toast, and manchego cheese. Afterwards, we stopped to get some really great ice cream at Los Italianos.
So, my summary on Granada : it felt a bit bohemiam/weird to me. I kept saying "Keep Granada Weird"! It actually felt like a big city to me....bigger than Madrid felt, even though it is much smaller. It was just louder and dirtier. The Albaicin was my favorite area. The highlights for us were the Arab baths and the flamenco dancing excursion.
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