ROSEMARY MacCABEspends a week learning Spanish in Granada, goes horse riding in the Sierra Nevada and takes a tour of the city's famous tapas bars along the way
EVERY NIGHT in the Andalusian city of Granada in the south of Spain, the street cleaners emerge in their droves. As the students party into the night – and well into the morning – and the residents sleep, the city is rejuvenated, refreshed. The detritus of the day’s activities (detritus that you will never see; not for the locals the chewing gum and cigarette butts of other European countries) is swept away, and when you emerge, blinking, into the morning sunlight, the city is as new: clean, fresh and full of possibilities.
Holidaying alone is never top of anyone’s to-do list, but when offered the chance to learn Spanish, enjoy the sunshine (for five out of six days), ride horses in the Sierra Nevada and learn to make paella, the concerns of solo travelling quickly fall by the wayside. As it happens, I need not have worried; the bus journey from Malaga is taken in the company of a couple of Irish people, travelling around southern Spain for 10 days.
Together, we get hopelessly lost in Granada – which, as I will learn, is no mean feat – and we take the touristic route on the bus, before doubling back on ourselves and finding our feet in the city itself.
That first night is spent in the company of several Irish and American backpackers staying in the Oasis hostel, a lovely backpackers’ hostel in the Albaicín – the Arabic area of the city. Here, it’s all winding streets and closely packed houses, which also features the Mirador de St Nicholas, an elevated balcony area where tourists and locals congregate to admire the views of the impressive Alhambra, the Islamic palace located at a 10-minute walk from Piazza Nueva, the central tourist square.
We go on a tapas tour around some local bars. Granada is famous all over Spain for its tapas culture; many bars in the city offer free tapas with each alcoholic drink. Some will select your tapas for you – ranging from meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce to a potato and tuna salad or individual pizzas – while others provide an extensive menu of tapas to choose from, some with up to 40 choices of meat, vegetarian and fish dishes.
When Monday dawns, I emerge, bleary-eyed, into the day to make my way to the Escuela Montalbán, where I will be taking Spanish language classes each morning, from Monday to Friday. Armed with my map, I anticipate a 40-minute walk through winding streets to the school; in reality, Granada, despite its meandering lanes and labyrinthine street layout, is small. Walking from one end to the other will take no more than 40 minutes and, once in the city, there is nowhere that is not within walking distance.
My class is small, and ranges in age from a 13-year-old American student to a 48-year-old German gentleman, all of us beginners. My Italian will give me an edge in the comprehension stakes, but, when prompted to speak, I come up with my own version of pidgin Itanglish that only I can understand.
We make progress at a steady pace. Given the week that’s in it, our vocabulary at the end will range from the very basic – “Hello, what’s your name?” – to the more specific – “There was a volcano in Iceland; the ash means there are no flights, please help me”. The classes are heavily conversation-based, with the odd game thrown in. Our teacher favours matching cards, at which I am an abject failure, and each overturned illustration is a fresh smack in the face of my assumed language success.
On the first night with the school, there is a tapas tour – my second in as many days – with Gayle Mackie, Scottish exile and co-author of Granada Tapas Tours: 100 Tapas Bars of Granada, a guide book that maps a route through various tapas tours in the city. With five of us, we are offered a selection of tidbits, and happily sample one another's: Jamón Iberico (a sweet, cured ham and Iberian speciality – and worth not only trying but bringing home for friends and family) and spicy meatballs vie for attention alongside Grenadine olives and manchego cheese (a hard, crumbly goats' cheese native to the region).
It’s also worth ordering some local wine; Granada has, relatively recently, started to press its own grapes and the wine, while young in taste, has a fresh fruitiness that should at least be sampled.
The week – a week that, having consulted some seasoned travellers, appeared to be too long to spend in Granada – passes by in a blur.
On Wednesday, I take a bus with Dirk, my German classmate, to the Sierra Nevada, the mountain range about an hour away from Granada where, in the winter, there is skiing and snowboarding. Now, on a balmy evening in springtime, we mount horses and go for a three-hour mosey around the mountain range. The views are spectacular, the air fresh – several times, my guide asks me if I am cold, failing to understand what the weather is like in Ireland – the horses obedient, if a little overly enthusiastic.
The ride itself is an easy one, and we are given minimal directions of great import, mainly: when the horse is going down a hill, lean back, and vice versa. Somehow, this vital piece of information doesn’t easily sit in my brain, and I spend the journey alternately leaning forward and back, hands tightly gripped on the reins, brain in a panic attempting to keep myself alive.
The next day, I take a tour of the Alhambra, one of Spain’s most famous sites – a complex of palaces, towers and gardens that dates back to the 14th century and has seen both Islamic and Christian ownership and building on its grounds. Now a Unesco World Heritage Site, a tour of the Alhambra can take from two to six hours, and I would recommend giving as much time as possible over to exploring its art, architecture, stunning water features and beautiful gardens – not to mention the panoramic views of the city from one of its highest points.
Thursday evening is spent learning to make paella in the Escuela de Cocina Javier Vilchez. The key, it would appear, is to put more oil than my granny used to fry sausages, and to leave the paella to its own devices, more or less. The waste at the bottom of the pan would make even the least thrifty Irish mammy cry, but Javier, our personal chef, is insistent that scraping the bottom will ruin the taste of the paella. I would be willing to run the risk, but my wooden spoon and I are hustled away from the frying pan at great speed and, cruelly, torn apart until I present no threat to myself or to the paella.
The last day of classes is another cruel bout of matching pairs, a short chat about volcanic ash and natural disasters (language difficulties mean that most chats had during my week in Granada, if not in English, are short), and a few hours spent shopping in the afternoon – in case I am stuck, I reason, I will need to stock up on basics from Zara, Massimo Dutti and Bershka. These are familiar names but their Spanish origin means we pay more in other countries than what they charge here, so each purchase is a definite bargain.
That evening I indulge in another southern Spanish tradition: flamenco. After a steep 10- minute climb through the Albaicín to Sala Vimaambi on Cuesta de San Gregorio, glass of wine in hand, I sit to watch what I imagine will be a series of fancily-dressed young women tapping castanets and kicking up skirts. Instead, flamenco is a combination of dance and poetry, rhythm and rhyme, and the dancing is accompanied by moving song and shouted poetry, all wrapped in an emotion that stems from proud tradition.
And Granada really is a place of proud traditions – heritage, from the scrawling streets of the Albaicín to the overwhelming beauty of the Alhambra, is juxtaposed with a lively population of students, tourists and friendly locals for an experience miles away from your average 18-30 holiday, but that you won’t soon forget.
Where to go to learn the lingo
The Spanish and horse riding course, which includes 20 Spanish lessons in the mornings combined with nine hours of horse riding in the afternoons, costs €290 per week with a €50 school registration fee. All levels and abilities are catered for in the classes, and there are special start dates for absolute beginners.
Apart from opting for hotel accommodation, students can choose between shared apartments at €120 from Sunday to Saturday, or €23 per night for host family accommodation on a BB basis.
Irish Times' readers can avail of a €30 discount if they use the code " IRISHTIMES" when booking either online on eurolanguages.com, or over the phone on 01-4434703. In addition to Spanish, the company offers courses for all ages in nine languages in 14 countries across Europe.
Go there
Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies to Malaga from Dublin, Cork and Belfast. Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies to Malaga from Dublin, Cork and Shannon.
Rosemary Mac Cabe travelled to Granada with Eurolanguages, which organises Spanish language holidays, along with a selection of cultural or sporting activities. See eurolanguages.com.