Granada in March Day 8 The Centre

It's our eighth day in Granada and is a free day in the sense that we have nothing in particular planned. We get off to a leisurely start with the objective of doing a little shopping eventually. It's also pomegranate day. The pomegranate is the symbol of Granada (granada in Spanish means pomegranate) and Andrea has been taking photos of the pomegranate in carious places all week, but today we specialise in the hunt, starting off with a visit to the Ayuntamiento, or town hall, which is full of pomegranates.

Our walk takes us through the centre, Plaza Bib-Rambla with its enormous fountain, Plaza Trinidad and eventually the Jardín Botanico of the University which is a small garden situated right in the centre. TripAdvisor reviews are unnecessarily harsh we decide. A small botanical garden cannot be expected to look like a city centre park full of flowers, and people who have never landscaped their own garden may not realise that plants tend to grow when left to their own devices. So, it's quite nice, there's a herb section while potentially larger trees and bushes are kept in large terracotta tubs making them an almost bonsai collection. Some of the labels are faded but most are not. It's worth a few minutes if you're walking by.

Our next stop after the gardens of Plaza del Triunfo is Hospital Real, also part of Granada University. There's a security check but after you can visit for free the four patios and the exhibitions which vary. 

The restored chemist's is particularly nice.

We head back via Puerta Elvira and Calle Elvira and finally find one of the things we were looking for - an unusual ethnic fabric mainly in orange with a tree design. There are lots of shops in Granada selling Moroccan ethnic items. They are mainly in the Alcaicería area near the Cathedral, in Calderia Nueva y Vieja, Cuesta de Gomerez and Calle Elvira. We find them fascinating, perhaps because fabrics, a scarf and a leather bag are on our shopping list. I also add a little ethnic print summer dress from the same shop, and on the way back we get a mug to match the one we got in Barcelona.

When we are nearly back at the apartment we notice that the El Molino restaurante, unjustly closed on Sunday, is open so we go in for a Caña de Cerveza Alhambra and a tapa which turns out to be of tortilla, bread and olives. Just right to resist until our late lunch back at the apartment.

After lunch and siesta we go for coffee and Pionono at Ylsa which is fortunately less busy than on Saturday, neither delude, but a sort of meringue we add on is, as often happens with Spanish cakes, nowhere near as good as it looks. We walk alongside the river on Paseo del Salon, another pleasant green area with trees and flowers. 

An uphill walk takes us back to Carmen de los Mártires Gardens where we return to our brick bench near the pond, going the opposite way round to avoid a quarrelsome white duck, and read and write and rest.

After a while we walk back up to the Alhambra and then down Cuesta del Rey Chico and then back up (!),  in the Albaicin to the Sant Isabel la Real church which is just open between 6.30 and 7. The church is unusual for the enormous and high staircase which leads up to the altar. It's very quiet and some nuns are looking towards the altar from behind the gate which separates them from the public.

The feeling of peace persists when we come out and go back down towards the centre. Outside of the weekend Granada is much quieter and more pleasant. After a quick supper we are out once more to see Granada by night, we walk along the Paseo del Darro and admire the Alhambra lit up against the dark sky, dominating Granada by day and if possible even more by night.