When we arrived at the hotel, we were surprised to learn that the taxi could not take us all the way as our hotel is in the old part of the city, so we get dropped at the bottom of a hill and told our hotel is just at the top of those steps, all 1200 of them on a 90 degree angle. 

Our room was on the top floor of the 3 story hotel and there was no elevator. We had booked the penthouse of the Carmen de Santa Inés it was a large open plan room, decked out in Spanish antique furniture, shutters opened on to a view to die for right over the city and up to The Alhambra Palace. The best way to look is view this movie, it was shot from the balcony of our room, the sounds below are the celebrations on the lower street for the festival of the crosses http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/granada.mov, The room had 3 windows like this http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/holiday149.jpg View from wrap around balcony http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/holiday143.jpg , http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/holiday105.jpg, View from shower http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/holiday146.jpg

By luck we arrived in Granada for the festival of the crosses, the locals partied hard in the streets for 3 days starting mid afternoon and going thru to about 2 am, each town square has live music and is packed with people, everyone brings there own alcohol and gets drunk! beware those lovely side streets are used for just one thing, urinating! boys and girls, we just ran down them holding our breath http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/holiday237.jpg For the festival of the crosses mothers and grandmothers must take great pride on dressing up the children who are all in costume, in the town squares you will find flamenco dancing competitions http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada//holiday251.jpg And once the live music starts everyone dances, http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/holiday246.jpg The mood is very happy and is a true celebration.

We did a tour of the Alhambra http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/holiday212.jpg, and dinner at the Gypsy caves http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/holiday241.jpg But my best memories will be the buskers in the street playing there flamenco guitars, ordering " dos pino tinto por favor" and the food, generally I would say keep away from the free tapas, you get much better by paying and the prices are cheap, 3-7 euro.

From a wine point of view I would say Spanish wines are great, we had no knowledge of them before travelling and were surprised at there quality and cheap price. As we did not know the wines we tried to stick to regions that we knew were good like Rioja, Ribero del Duero With the exception of the complementary wine at the gypsy caves we did not have a bad wine in Spain, next time I travel I will take more notes on what we actually drunk. " dos pino tinto por favor "

Valencia

We were only here the night but had one mission, to eat paella!  We stayed in the very modern Palau de la Mar hotel, http://www.vacationpicture.net/granada/holiday156.jpg

and ventured out upon the hotels recommendation to Casa Roberto restaurant, No one spoke good English so it was hardwork, but we eventually got them in the mood for what we were looking at, they took us to the kitchen and pointed out seafoods and us just nodding our heads at everything. 20 minutes later out came our buffet for 10. The paella was divine and has set a level that all paella's I have from now on will be judged by. We left after we mopped up the juices with the extra bread we ordered and finished our 3rd bottle of wine, very content, very full, and very merry, we had done what we wanted to achieve in Valencia.

The next day we headed to the airport and flew to Ibiza ....