Granada

Wow! Granada was just amazing. We adored this lovely little place in the south of Spain.

Our house in Granada in Albaicín, the old Arabic quarter located on the hill opposite the Alhambra.
The area is known for its cobble stoned streets with white washed houses. The view of Alhambra from our bedroom! Amazing sight to wake up to each day 🙂Alleys and alley cats.Alhambra dogsIt’s a shopper’s paradise in downtown Granada.The strong Moorish influence is seen in many of the amazing shops hidden down tiny little streets.Alhambra from our room at night.And looking in the other direction from our room wasn’t too bad either 🙂There’s so many gorgeous cafes and shops scattered through Granada.A cute little florist in one of the main squares.Bit of a tight squeeze…How cool is this street lamp?!Views towards the mountains framed by the white washed houses.I couldn’t get enough of these picturesque little streets (as I’m sure this blog post shows).Until next time Granada…xo

Chicago

Chicago was amazing! Maybe it was because we weren’t expecting it to be as amazing as it was but it was really fantastic.

The train station that greeted us when we arrived gave good first impressions.

We had spectacular weather and really enjoyed walking all around the city for the first few days. The gardens are all beautifully maintained, Lake Michigan is gorgeous and the Chicago cityscape is wonderfully unique.

The Bean!

The underside of ‘The Bean’ is even cooler!A lot of The Dark Knight rises was filmed in Chicago so given the number of times we’ve watched that film, we recognised many parts of Chicago.
They’re totally serious about this too…ask for ketchup and they’ll just say “This is Chicago.”We had a wonderful evening watching the sun set from the John Hancock Centre. We went up to the cafe and ordered an overpriced drink each and stayed for as long as we possibly could. Watching the lights come on was really magical and a definite highlight of the trip so far. Mmm…banana & nutella crepes – nice healthy treat 😉We paid a visit to the very educational Adler Planetarium……and also learned that we need to start wearing something other than Havaianas!Our Air B’n’B host gave us free admission to the Art Institute of Chicago which was really good.Van Gogh is a particular favourite of ours. This is his self portrait and a gallery full of Monet’s work.There was a wonderful photography exhibition too which really inspired me. The guy can make a brown paper bag look good! That’s talent!The Chicago Cultural Centre with the amazing Tiffany dome.We also visited the Lincoln Park Zoo which is free and really quite good. How good is this guy’s tongue!Our last night in Chicago happened to coincide with the 30th annual Chicago Blues Festival which nicely capped off a jam packed and really enjoyable 5 days in Chicago.