Hi all,
Has anyone taken a guided tour of the Cathedral and Royal Chapel? Since the Cathedral is the second largest in Spain (according to its website) I don't want to shortchange it. Yet, we will have four weeks of visiting Cathedrals and churches so perhaps a tour isn't necessary.
An audio guide is provided through an app on your phone as well.
Thank you!
I can't help you with your question but want to say San Juan de Dios is eye-popping. There must be an audioguide; I can't say I remember for sure, but in Spain there's always an audioguide. Baroque churches are not usually my favorites, but that one is unbelievable.
Hi CaliMom -
We were there a couple of weeks back and toured both sites. From what I could observe the guided tours were all external travel groups. The good news is the app comes free with your admission (itself not unreasonable in price, cheap in fact) just scan the QR codes inside/on the ticket.
Once downloaded it asks you to select language. There’s an audio guide which I listened to on my phone as I wandered round the Cathredral. I recognise that it would have been better through headphones (for everybody) but hadn’t brought any so I had my volume reduced and tried to find a quiet uncrowded spot to listen. However each guide, divided into several sections, also runs a type only version of the audio guide (bring your specs!) which is just fine which I used exclusively in the Capilla Real (it was very busy and I felt an inappropriate place to listen to the audio without headphones).
I found the Royal Chapel the more interesting, but the Cathedral is definitely worth seeing (they are separate sites) but I’ve always had a yen to visit the last resting places of Philipe The Beautiful and Juana The Mad! Plus Isabella and Ferdinand who are also buried there funded Columbus and also Isabella is the mother of Catherine of Aragon, who was the first wife of England’s Henry VIII (divorced!) so there’s a tie in to English history there too.
Personally I’m glad we visited both sites on our short stay in Granada, I would think if you are spending any time there it’s almost compulsory!
Hope you have a great trip!
Ian
I can't help you on the guided tour, but I will say that we used the audioguide for both sites and it was quite good. Often times they are not (I thought the one for the Sevilla cathedral was awful and stopped using it), but I felt like the ones for these sites did a good job of describing what I was looking at and the history behind it.
And I second acraven's suggestion not to miss the Basilica of San Juan de Dios -- it's amazing!
Thanks all! I’m glad to hear the audio guide is good. We used it At Westminster Abbey and it was done really well.
And I’ve added the Basilica of San Juan de Dios to our list!
Ian, since you were just there, any restaurants that you recommend? Or other notes?
Hi CaliMom -
The only restaurant that was truly standout was one we could walk to from our apartment - in fact our apartment overlooked it - in a minute or less. It’s a terrace restaurant called ‘El Mirador de Tato’ and it is a terrace restaurant just off Calle San Jose Alta in the Albaicin. You can go up Calle San Jose to the access for the parking garage for our apartments and walk straight through and onto the terrace.
Caveat: while it’s a terrace restaurant with a sensational view over Granada, as such there’s no ‘inside’. Our interest was piqued and we asked what they did in the winter. They said they didn’t close but didn’t open in the evenings, just during the day (1.00 - 5.00pm). There were big umbrellas up - maybe they have some form of ‘apres ski style’ heating if it’s really cold. I don’t know as we didn’t need it! The food however is really good, prices to match, but excellent. Menu in Spanish but QR code gives English version as do staff who spoke enough English along with my half-baked Spanish to get the drift!
As for the rest of the time, we just called into cafes and restaurants in the city centre as they took our fancy. I’m sure that you could find just as good, or better, as the ones we used, it’s not like there’s a shortage of choice. We did buy a load of empanadas from Lusita’s - there’s a branch near where you are staying and one near Plaza Trinidad (more accurately just off it) - for our train journey lunch and they were just the ticket!
Ian
P.S. Here’s the mirador’s website: https://elmiradordetato.com/
Just home from Granada and can highly recommend two tapas bars: Taberna La Tana (suggest a reservation as we were lucky to walk in; many others were turned away) and Bodegas Castenada. Enjoy!
Thank you Ian and mml!
mml, both of those are on my list. Making a reservation at Taberna la Tana now!
